Developers must comply within a month of the order being issued, failing which they will face heavy penalties, including site closure.
A haze blankets Prabahdevi, Dadar and Worli areas, on Wednesday. Pic/Ashish Raje
To hold developers accountable for their environmental impact, it is mandatory for all construction sites in the city and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region to install sensor-based pollution monitors. Developers must comply within a month of the order being issued, failing which they will face heavy penalties, including site closure.
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Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) Member Secretary Avinash Dhakne, an IAS officer, in a letter to all municipal corporations, has urged civic bodies to ensure that sensors are deployed at all construction sites to monitor pollution levels and the monitoring data should be made available for inspection to BMC and authorities. The sensors will help identify high-pollution areas and enable timely corrective action.
A heartening aspect is that punitive action is also on the cards. If the device is not installed, authorities will initiate action, including site closure, until compliance is ensured, according to a mid-day report. In what is another effort at mitigating pollution, the MPCB has also directed the BMC to oversee implementation and monitor pollution levels through a central command and control room.
All this should translate into action and not remain directives on paper. First there must be clarity to developers about the sensors. A timeline has to be given. Then these should be made available and finally, installation and monitoring have to go ahead.
We welcome every measure being taken to fight pollution as huge swathes of the city are in the midst of the redevelopment boom. Yet, this must not just remain verbal orders must become reality, be practical and implementable. With development the buzzword across the city, though that term development itself may be debatable, we need to get more efficient in our anti-pollution arsenal.
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