Bite the dust

Bokadvira is still and quiet when we visit it early on Thursday afternoon Most of the working population has headed out leaving behind the children the elderly and homemakers They are not alone They are enveloped in a cloud of smog that sits heavy in the atmosphere around clearly visible to anyone who looks upOn this day Bokadvira and 48 surrounding villages that make up the Uran taluka registered an air quality index AQI of 300 considered ldquohazardous air qualityrdquo according to AQI Indiarsquos website The private airmonitoring initiative detects and reports invisible air particulate in the environment noise pollution and humidity levelsThe view from Belapur resident Shubhangi Tirodkarrsquos balcony Once facing the mangroves and Vashi creek the stretch has now been taken over by airport construction acitivity PicsAshish RajeUran reported an AQI of 150 to 200mdashclassified as ldquounhealthyrdquomdashfrom September 27 to October 10 Soon pollution experts and clean air advocates came to realise that this wasnrsquot a oneoff case Mumbai and MMR have left Delhi far behind On the same day the capital recorded an AQI of 149Bokadvirarsquos case is unique The size of Bandrarsquos Pali Hill neighbourhood the village houses the Bombay High refinery a bottling plant the Maharashtra State Electricity Board MSEB where methane is converted to electricity and the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust JNPT all within a 25 km radiusTirodkar points out to the hillocks that inspired this painting by a local artist the hills have now been razed to the ground due to the ongoing airport work The blasting has increased the dust inside their houseThis cocktail of dust and chemicals in the air say its longtime residents has made it difficult to breathe The change has been particularly noticeable in the last three years says Gopal Patil 65 chairman of Uran Uttkarsh Committee He is an activist with a hobby The amateur singer who showcases his passion with pride through photographs of performances plastered on a wall behind him says ldquoOur ancestors lived here when there was nothing They have tilled this land and fished in the sea Then in the 70rsquos industries came in and suddenly there was viable employment for people They grabbed the opportunity with both hands Soon the repercussions were visible And then began the struggle of getting someone to listen to usrdquo Like his neighbours he doesnrsquot want industry to leave what he is demanding is closer monitoring of pollution caused by the factories ldquoThere is no one looking at what the industries are throwing out into the air What are the gasses being released Who is monitoring this and do we have reports to seerdquo Patil has been pushing the local gram panchayat office bearers to take stalk but has met with little successAt the panchayat office sarpanch Yogita Patil refused to comment saying ldquoThe other panchs are more informed on the matterrdquo When midday asked her if she had received complaints from the locals she replied in the negativeGopal Patil chairman of Uran Uttkarsh Committee Navneet Patil a local says dust has made it difficult to breathe Mohammad Rabbani who owns a ironing shop canrsquot bear the heat and BN Kumar director of NatConnect FoundationWe left walking the streets of Bokadvira hoping to find voices of dissent We encountered a group of senior citizens including Anant Kishan Patil 68 a retired MSEB staffer Patil confessed that he has had to cut short his morning walk because breathing the air makes him uncomfortable ldquoI stepped out at 6 am but couldnrsquot continue after 20 minutes I felt heavy nauseous Dum lagtoyrdquo He refused to be photographed for this article The reason No one wants to take on the industries Some family member or the other is likely to have a job in one of the factories or at JNPT ldquoItrsquos either that or that they do not want to risk not getting compensation if their land goes to the government for an infrastructure project or bought over by a builder to construct a luxurious towerrdquo says Patil seated in the garden of his twostoried homeA few residents albeit gingerly do open up The owner of Bokadvirarsquos only photo studio Milind Mhatre 33 has lived here all his life ldquoItrsquos only recently that we have noticed extreme weather and this dustrdquo Mhatre who has a sevenandahalfyearold daughter who goes to school in Uran city has been in and out of clinics thanks to throat infections ldquoThe dust gets in everywhere The doctor has asked me to ensure that she always wears a mask The doctors are unsure whatrsquos causing this dust chemical fumes we donrsquot know what exactlyrdquo he says wiping the counter with a dusting cloth something he has to repeat several times in the dayDr Rakesh Kumar and Bhagwan KesbhatThe hillocks surrounding Uran have seen blasting over recent years We drove past the blasting sites where we were told the end of the airstrip for the Navi Mumbai International Airport NMIA is expected to be built as well as airportsupporting structures Founder and director of Vashibased nonprofit NatConnect Foundation BN Kumar points out to a hill which has whittled down over time thanks to a series of controlled exposures ldquoWhen they blast the rocks a huge cloud of dust stays suspended in the air This air is blown into Uran settling down on structures bridges and roadsrdquo he says standing on the megabridgemdashinaugurated only a few years agomdashthat connects Belapur with Uran and Jasai and further down to Panvel and Karjat When containers steel and cement transporting trucks whizz past the dust is kicked back up into the air ldquoThe dust is now entering the homes and our lungs We are staring at a health hazardrdquo warns KumarExperts like Dr Rakesh Kumar former director of National Environmental Engineering Research Institute NEERI and Officer on Special Duty at Council of Scientific and Industrial Research CSIR New Delhi who has visited the area is aware of the deterioration ldquoI had visited Uran two years ago and air pollution because of dust and particulate matter PM was already a health hazardrdquo Traditionally AQI levels are measured by taking into account not just PM levels 10 micron and 25 micron but also nitrogen oxide emitted by vehicles or any kind of burning and sulphur dioxide which emerges due to smeltingA remnant of a hillock can be seen on the highway that connects Belapur to UranItrsquos likely that the respiratory troubles and throat infection cases that the area has been experiencing are on account of chemicals such as nitrogen oxide and other carbons being released into the air When these react with sunlight they create groundlevel ozone Groundlevel ozone is a colourless gaseous irritant that sits right above the earthrsquos surface and can harm human health being especially injurious to those who suffer from respiratory conditions like asthma Elevated exposures to ozone can also affect sensitive vegetation and wilderness ldquoIt is corrosive and leads to severe cough compromising a personrsquos immunity over timerdquo Kumar explainsHe stresses that what we need is a model followed by some countries that set a threshold in industrial areas for harmful emissions because itrsquos tough to control groundlevel ozone since it is dependent on sundry elements reacting in sunlight ldquoThat we know that industrial areas will be more polluted than others means that we must set an upper limit for emissions and constantly monitor itrdquoMilind Mhatre wipes off the dust at his Sunshine Studio in BokadviraldquoDustrdquo says an exasperated Navneet Patil 35 ldquois a major concern We canrsquot breathe On some days we have to wet our handkerchiefs and hold it to our mouth and nose while heading to work When we wash them out we see the dust drain with the waterrdquo Patil works in Bokadvira as a teacherIn January this year the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority JNPA which administers JNPT announced that it had registered the highestever throughput in 202223 605 million twentyfoot equivalent units MTEUs No one knows exactly when containers get in and out due to high productivity ldquoThey are only interested in increasing business so the containers come rolling in and out through the dayrdquo rues PatilAnjal PrakashBhagwan Kesbhat founder of city environment group Waatavaran says that in 2019 the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change MoEFCC launched the National Clean Air Programme NCAP to improve air quality in 133 cities nonattainment cities and million plus Cities in 24 statesUTs by engaging all stakeholders But when COVID hit the country all resources and manpower was veered away from ensuring clean air ldquoEighteen cities from Maharashtra were on the clean air programme Uran wasnrsquot If those cities saw no progress imagine Uranrsquos staterdquoAnjal Prakash clinical associate professor research and research director at Bharti Institute of Public Policy ISB observes that the diversion of resources was never corrected ldquoThe argument by activists suggesting that the diversion of resources to address the COVID19 pandemic has led to insufficient monitoring and public representation in addressing air pollution holds merit During the pandemic resources and attention understandably shifted towards healthcare and crisis management potentially affecting monitoring and response to other pressing issues like air quality This reallocation might have hindered the timely implementation of air quality measures and public engagement efforts contributing to the current challenges To mitigate these consequences a balanced allocation of resources enhanced crisis preparedness and longterm planning for environmental issues is essentialrdquo he saysIn 2022 the City Industrial Development Corporation CIDCO in a press release said that it has completed 50 per cent of rock cutting related to construction of the DB Patil International airport coming up at Ulwe in Navi Mumbai Spread over 1160 hectares it is meant to house a multilevel car parking facility MLCP that can house 5500 vehicles for which blasting is also being carried out the release said The airport is expected to be completed by 2028 and will house parking spaces for 42 aircrafts It is said to have the capacity to handle 25 million tonnes of cargo by 2032 and handle nine crore passengers every year eventuallyThe vibrations from this blasting are felt as far as Belapur Shubhangi Tirodkar a senior citizen and environment activist says that several times a day they ldquofeel the earth beneath their feet shakerdquo ldquoThey are currently blasting three times a day twice in the afternoon and once in the evening We feel the earth move and then we hear the blast When we look out we see the dust riserdquo she says Her twoandahalfyearold granddaughter walks into the room to look for her stuffed elephant toy ldquoShe has been on medication repeatedly because of irritation caused by the dust We went from allopathic to Ayurvedic and are now relying on homeopathy medicines Letrsquos see if it worksrdquo Tirodkar says 156Mumbairsquos AQI on October 19301Uranrsquos AQI on October 19