FEBRUARY WITNESSES FRESHEST AIR IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS, EVEN BETTER THAN JANUARY

The month of February saw Mumbaikars breathing freshest air in the last five (Februaries) years even as Hyderabad and Chennai showed more number of ‘good air’ days than Mumbai. According to Gufran Beig, chair professor at National Institute of Advanced Studies, IISC, Bangalore since El Nino is neutralising and temperature is rising across the continent, the air currents have been strong leading fresher air this season. However, he has predicted more dust storms as temperature goes up further.

PM 2.5 pollutants are fine particulate matter less than 1/30th the width of a strand of a human air and can directly get injected into the bloodstream upon respiration. It may be recalled that Mumbai's air quality had deteriorated in November last year. However stringent measures such as closure of construction sites, ready mix concrete plants, small and bigger industrial installations besides sprinkling of water on major roads to arrest dust and smoke were taken. Interesting to note that the number of active monitoring stations in the city increased from 20 to 28 over the last one year bringing more areas under air monitoring.

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