Over 1,000 construction sites in Mumbai served stop-work notices: Minister

The Maharashtra government and the civic authorities have intensified their crackdown on air pollution in Mumbai, issuing stop-work notices to more than 1,000 construction sites in the city for violating environmental norms, state Minister Pankaja Munde said on Tuesday. The environment minister informed the legislative assembly that 1,952 out of 2,224 active construction sites in the city - nearly 88 per cent - have installed low-cost air quality sensors as of January. According to official data, a total of 1,981 show-cause notices and 1,047 stop-work notices were issued across the city between October 2025 and January 2026 as part of the ongoing ''Clean Air'' initiative, she said in a written reply on AQI levels. Munde refuted claims about a public health crisis due to pollution levels, citing reports from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC), which stated that no adverse health impacts were recorded among vulnerable groups, including children and senior citizens, despite the air quality fluctuating between the 'satisfactory' and 'moderate' categories. ''We are following a strict escalation matrix for violators. Construction projects failing to adhere to dust-mitigation guidelines are first given a formal intimation, followed by a show-cause notice, and then a stopwork order if they remain non-compliant,'' she said. The minister asserted that the AQI levels in Mumbai are satisfactory, 51-100, and medium, 101-200. Highlighting the push for technology-driven monitoring, she informed that 1,952 out of 2,224 active construction sites in the city have already installed low-cost air quality sensors as of January. However, she noted that 678 projects were ordered to halt work on January 16 alone due to a lack of sensor compliance. Between October 2025 and January 2026, the BMC's 25 ward-level flying squads have been actively penalising the illegal transport of debris, collecting over Rs 1.21 lakh in fines. To combat the ''dust menace,'' the government has deployed a massive fleet of 126 water tankers and 25 misting machines to wash 14,408 kilometres of city roads.