BMC air quality stations grossly under-staffed

Only 17 of the 52 posts in the air quality monitoring stations and laboratories of the BMC have been occupied and staffed. As many as 35 posts have been lying vacant, according to an RTI query by activist Chetan Kothari.

Further, some posts of even senior scientists are vacant. In all, there are six air quality monitoring stations, laboratory and three mobile vans.

The civic body has air quality checking stations at Worli, Khar, Andheri, Bhandup, Maravali, and Deonar, a research lab at Santacruz and three mobile vans at Worli, Andheri and Wadala.

The absence of staff has hit daily tasks such as inspection of industries for emissions and collection of fresh data on air pollution.

Under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, BMC is responsible for monitoring real-time data across air quality stations and submitting them to the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) every year.

RTI stated the stations didn’t have a scientist in-charge, and only one of the required five scientific officers. The maximum number of vacant posts is that of junior scientific officers and lab assistants.

According to civic officials, the environment department is trying to address the problem. “The staff crunch is affecting our daily functions. We are in the process of recruiting more officers,” said a senior official from BMC’s environment department.

Experts in the environment field, however, stated as far as a city like Mumbai is concerned, these things have already been taken care of due to prime technology and realtime monitoring stations.

“For Mumbai, we used to depend on BMC data till 2017, but now, with more than 11 real-time MPCB monitoring stations, data collation and monitoring is not an issue. Otherwise elsewhere, our air quality action plan for individual cities is completely dependent on the municipal corporation’s inputs for section-wise source mitigation," said a senior MPCB officer.