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Vashi2Panvel.com: Navi Mumbai: August 22:Navi Mumbai is a rapidly developing city. Along with many industries several magnificent commercial and residential establishments are adding to it, giving scenario of a modern developed city. However globally every modernisation has to pay in terms of clean environment and Navi Mumbai is no exception. V2P had an exclusive interview with Mr. AM Deshpande Air Pollution Abatement Engineer, MPCB Navi Mumbai. Excerpts of interview:

V2P:What are the general activities of MPCB Regional offices and how many such Regional offices are in Maharahtra?

MPCB is committed to implement environmental legislations. There are three acts which are implemented by our Board.
i) Water(P & CP) Act 1974
ii) Air(P & CP) Act 1981
iii) Environmental Protection Act 1986
Under the provision of these legislations MPCB covers water pollution by directing the water pollution prone industries to provide well designed effluent treatment plants. Similarly the air pollution prone industries are suggested to install air pollution control systems. The industries which generate toxic and hazardous waste are advised to send it to appropriate disposal sites. Apart from this MPCB does noise monitoring specially during festive seasons, when related complaints are given due care.

The other area of our monitoring is solid waste like municipal waste produced by Municipal departments. NMMC is communicated as and when required in this direction.

MPCB has total 11 Regional Offices in Maharashtra out of which 5 offices are located in Mumbai MMRDA area.

V2P: What are pollution-prone industries, in Navi Mumbai and what are you doing in this field?
As you know Maharashtra is a highly industrialised state, there are some industries which normally do not create pollution but we can call them 'pollution prone' industries which are monitored more closely by our Board to check whether they are taking proper measures to control pollution. Our field officers and sub-regional officers are visiting these industries once a month to collect samples of air, water and solid waste whichever applicable.

In Navi Mumbai we have a common facility for treatment of water effluent known as CETP (Common Effluent Treatment Plant) for Thane Belapur industries. Its' capacity has been recently increased from 12 MLD (million litres per day) to 27 MLD. Similarly in Taloja industrial Estate, there is another CETP having capacity of 15 MLD. The water effluent is collected here, treated and discharged in to creeks through pipe lines.

Regarding solid and semi-solid effluent there is a plant for its disposal at Taloja. The bio-medical waste generated from hospitals of Navi Mumbai is sent to Taloja where it is properly disposed by incineration etc.

In Turbhe NMMC is having facilities for collection, transportation and treatment of municipal solid waste, which is regularly monitored by us.

V2P: What are your pollution monitoring activities?
Our board has installed a continuous air monitoring station near Vishnudas Bhave Hall, Vashi with the help of NMMC, under their supervision. The 50% cost of this unit has been shared by MPCB. The main purpose of this monitoring station is to monitor and display the air quality for residential areas giving various parameters as follows:
i) RSPM (Respirable Particulate Matters) should not be more than 60 micro gm/cubic meter ii)SPM (suspended particulate matters) should not be more than 100 micro gm/cubic metet iii) SO2 and NOx should not be more than 80 micro gm/cubic meter.

V2P: What are the samples test facilities available by the Board?
We have established sample test facilities at different locations of Navi Mumbai.
Two Samples per week are taken from following locations:
DY Patil College, Nerul
Nirmal Bhavan, Mhape
Datta Meghe College, Airoli
Panvel Bus stand
Kharghar
MIDC Taloja
In future six more sampling locations will be chosen which will be uniformly distributed in Navi Mumbai.

V2P: What is the role of Central Laboratory set up recently at Mhape and how many people are working there?
The main purpose of Central Laboratory is to analyse various samples collected by our field staff.This is recently shifted from CBD Belapur to our new premises at NIRMAL BHAVAN Mhape, which has sophisticated instruments for analysing various parameters pertaining to pollution. We have about 50 technical staff to operate this Lab. About 900 to 1000 samples per month are taken from different regions for analysing in this lab.

V2P: What do you think of the air quality in Navi Mumbai. Is it as per international standards?
As per our findings in Navi Mumbai, RSPM and SPM are slightly on higher side, about 70% of this due to vehicular traffic in Navi Mumbai. As such you can see there is lot of work to be done in this direction, to call Navi Mumbai a city of 21st Century.

Umesh Malviya