Bhopal to Mumbai: Four decades of ignored air pollution

Toxic air persists as India prioritises economy over environment and lives

- Smruti Koppikar

There was a sense of déjà vu for many of us who remember the tragic Bhopal gas disaster, as news trickled in about the last of the toxic waste being moved out this week after 40 long years.

The 1980s was when Mumbai, then Bombay, battled industrial pollution on a major scale given the large number of manufacturing plants, chemical and engineering units, oil refineries, and more.

Chembur, on the city's eastern side, was derogatorily called the 'gas chamber' of the city; its lush, verdant green areas and large open spaces were simply unable to handle the toxic fumes from the concentration of industries there.

The argument offered now, that the city's air and water should be cleaner because almost all the polluting industries have moved out or were forced out (to semi-urban areas where they took their pollution anyway), does not hold.

The old brick-and-mortar industries may not have Mumbai addresses anymore, and their plots of land across the city - from Parel and Lalbaug in central Mumbai to Bhandup and Kandivali in the suburbs - have been redeveloped or gentrified into gleaming glass-fronted commercial or residential complexes.

But Mumbai is more - not less - polluted, as the continuing haze over the city in the past week has shown.

Mumbai's Air Quality Index in the past few years has been in the 'poor' to 'very poor' and, sometimes, in the 'hazardous' category too.

While the share of industrial pollution in the poor air quality has reduced compared to the decades of the 80s-90s, the service and start-up sectors that now dominate Mumbai's economy contribute to the pollution load, though they do not, obviously, have chimneys spouting dark smoke.

Increased vehicular traffic, unceasing construction activities, and large data centres are among the energy guzzlers with massive emission loads that are keeping Mumbai polluted.