Landscape assessment of the cities in the state of Maharashtra: first step towards air quality management (AQM) and strategic implementation of mitigation plans.

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY: This study aims to understand the need for landscape assessment of the 18 non-attainment cities in the state of Maharashtra, to understand and rank the cities according to the need and necessity for strategic implementation of air quality management. This air quality management is a National Clean Air Programme initiative to curb the air pollution level in all the highly polluted Indian cities by 20-30% till 2024. METHODOLOGY: The ranking and selection of the cities consisted of a two-phase approach including (a) desk research and (b) field interventions and stakeholders' consultations. The first phase included (ai) review of 18 non-attainment cities in Maharashtra, (aii) identification of suitable indicators to inform prioritisation during the ranking process, (aiii) data collection and analysis of the indicators and (aiv) the ranking of the 18 non-attainment cities in Maharashtra. The second phase, i.e. field interventions included (bi) Mapping of stakeholders and field visits, (bii) the consultations with the stakeholders, (biii) information and data collection and (biv) ranking and selection of cities. On analysing the score obtained from both the approaches a ranking of all the cities is done accordingly. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The screening of cities from the first phase gave a possible list of 8 cities-Aurangabad, Kolhapur, Mumbai, Nagpur, Nashik, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Solapur. Further, the second round of analysis involving field interventions and stakeholder consultations was done within the 8 cities to find out the most suitable list of two to 5 cities. The second research analysis gave Aurangabad, Kolhapur, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Pune. A more granular stakeholder consultation resulted in the selection of cities like Navi Mumbai and Pune as the cities where implementation of new strategies seemed feasible. INTERVENTION AND ACTIVITIES: New strategic interventions like (a) strengthen the clean air ecosystem/institutions, (b) air quality monitoring and health impact assessment, and (c) skill development to ensure the long-term sustainability of initiatives planned for the cities.