Breathe easy, Mumbai! City continues to have good air quality

No 77: India | India’s rank has improved by 23 positions from last year, indicating that it is continuing its steady shift towards global standards. The World Bank said that this is mainly due to India’s continued reform agenda, which has made it the top-ranked economy in the region. Reduced import and export times, upgradation of port infrastructure, and the digitisation of document submission has also helped elevate India.

Mumbai which witnessed the cleanest air in three years on Monday continues to breathe easy as it still has one of the best air quality among Indian cities tracked by governmental monitoring agencies in the country.

Records for only Pune and Bengaluru showed slightly better air quality than Mumbai.

Data available at System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research or SAFAR which tracks air quality in four cities in India—Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Pune—showed Pune had the lowest air quality index or AQI at 69. AQI is a measure based on PM_2.5 concentration in the air.

At the time of writing, Mumbai with an AQI of 73 was just behind its neighbour. Ahmedabad had an AQI of 156 and the index for Delhi was 154.

On Monday, the AQI of Mumbai dropped to 18, shattering all records. The weathermen attributed clean air to heavy rain over the weekend and wind from the Arabian Sea which swept all the dust away from the city.

The air quality map maintained by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) showed PM_2.5 concentration in Mumbai at 15.29 µg/m³ which is in range with the recommended level. In Pune, the range of PM_2.5 concentration recorded by 10 monitoring stations maintained by SAFAR was 13 µg/m³ to 115 µg/m³. Similarly, Bengaluru enjoyed clean air with the concentration hovering around 13 µg/m³.

State of air in northern cities was, unsurprisingly, bad. Delhi, Chandigarh, and Lucknow have been in the news recently because of a spell of severe air quality due to dust storms. Several flights in Chandigarh had to be cancelled because of the bad air.

The SAFAR projects the AQI of Mumbai to be around 51 for Friday. Except in the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) area, most of the city will clear air to breathe. A similar projection is for Pune.