Mumbai: Government forms committee to work on reducing pollution in city

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government informed the state assembly that a committee has been formed to study increasing pollution levels in Mumbai and submit a report with solutions to tackle the issue. Cabinet Minister Deepak Kesarkar told the assembly that a meeting with committee members will be called on March 19 while requesting all MLAs of Mumbai to present.

"Recent increase in pollution has made Mumbaikars life tough," says ministers

BJP MLAs Mihir Kotecha, Parag Shah, Atul Bhatkhalkar, Ashish Shelar and others raised the question of pollution in Mumbai. They said clean air is the right of Mumbaikars, but the recent increase in pollution has made life tough as there is a huge jump in the cases of respiratory ailments. Asserting that the quality of air from November 2022 to January was the “worst”, the MLAs demanded strong action to curb pollution.

Plenty of suggestions by experts

In his response, Kesarkar said, “A number of suggestions have already been made by experts. Like using tin sheets where building or any other construction activity is going on. Also, there are new technologies which reduce the dust generated during construction work.”

According to Kesarkar, senior IAS officer Sanjeev Kumar is the chairman of the committee formed by the state government to look into the matter and suggest solutions. “This committee is holding meetings with experts, activists and people's representatives. There is one more meeting on March 19 where MLAs of Mumbai are called for a discussion,” he said, adding that the state government will take action based on the committee's report.