Mumbai air worsens after Diwali, parents leave the city to shield children

The festival season brings lights, family gatherings and celebration, but it also brings worry about the air. Delhi usually has a high AQI, but during Diwali Mumbai is not far behind. As pollution rises, some parents have begun leaving the city to keep their children from prolonged exposure to bad air.

Shalini Nair, an entrepreneur and writer from Navi Mumbai, adopted this approach three years ago, when her eight-year-old daughter began having breathing trouble. "As soon as she starts coughing, we know the air is getting bad. Then we check the AQI. My daughter has allergic rhinitis, which flares up when the AQI worsens," says Nair.

Allergic rhinitis is inflammation of the inner lining of the nose. It occurs when the body's immune system overreacts to airborne allergens such as dust, pollen or pollution. It can cause sneezing, a blocked nose and a runny nose. According to Nair, doctors also notice a pattern among the patients who come to them, which tells them the air is worsening.

On Monday, Mumbai saw its worst air of the year. The average AQI from 4 pm on Sunday to 4 pm on Monday was 172, which falls in the moderate category. This is the highest figure for the city's official AQI in the whole year. By 8 pm it had risen by one point to 173. At that time, ten of the 25 active monitoring stations were in the "poor" category. The three worst-affected areas at 8 pm were Kherwadi Bandra East (284), Sewri (246) and BKC (243). The main pollutant was PM2.5. These are official figures recorded on the SAMEER app of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

Entrepreneur Shannon R returned from the UK in 2021. She has made it a firm rule to leave Mumbai every Diwali. She says that just two or three days outside the city stops her child's cough, wheezing and watering eyes. On this short trip, the child sleeps well without breathing trouble.

Experts advise regular outdoor play for children's development, but parents are now afraid to send them out. Shannon has installed an air purifier in every room of her house and inside her car. Nair returned to Mumbai today. She says worry about the air remains in the coming days. In her words, "We returned this afternoon and shut all the windows and doors. But that will not be enough."

The cost of treating pollution-related illness also weighs on affected families. Managing a child's breathing symptoms costs about Rs 6,000 for two weeks of common medicines and steroid inhalers. This does not include the separate cost of planning a trip out of the city.

This is how Mumbai's AQI stood during Diwali. Before Dhanteras (November 6), it was between 110 and 140. On Chhoti Diwali and the evening of the main festival (November 7 and 8), the daytime average was 132 to 171, while at night it shot up to between 400 and 497. On the morning of Bhai Dooj (November 9), it was between 230 and 278.