Mumbai Faces Growing Air Pollution Crisis with Elevated PM2.5 Levels
Mumbai is fast joining the list of Indian cities where every breath feels less safe, with spots such as Deonar, Sion, Kandivli East, and the Bandra-Kurla Complex regularly showing sky-high PM2.5 levels. So even though the city-wide average still nudges past the official minimum, plenty of pockets are breathing in dangerous levels of this cancer-linked dust. A fresh study from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) adds weight to the worry, showing Mumbai’s air is getting worse when you stack it up against other coastal metros.
The CREA insights come from month-by-month readings gathered by Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS) across 239 cities between January and June 2025, and the results for Mumbai are tough to swallow. True, the city’s overall PM2.5 number may stay within the national goal of 40 μg/m³; however, that figure hides the grim reality in many local wards. In Deonar, for example, readings almost always hover above or around the 40 μg/m³ mark, confirming it as one of Mumbai’s sickest air spots. Tiny PM2.5 particles slip straight into your lungs and then into your blood, making them much worse than ordinary dust. They’re linked to breathing problems, heart trouble, and even certain kinds of cancer. Right now, places like Sion, Kandivali East, Borivali East, Mazgaon, and Worli are showing levels so high in Mumbai that daily life feels unsafe. Because of that, we urgently need air-cleaning steps that focus on each of these neighbourhoods rather than one-size-fits-all rules.
Look at the coast, too, and things seem calmer. Chennai, for example, usually reports much fewer PM2.5 particles, especially in its quieter suburbs. Puducherry stays even cleaner, showing that a sea breeze without working industry can still help air quality. So while all three cities share the shoreline, they offer very different breathing conditions. On a national scale, more than 122 Indian cities went past the year’s legal PM2.5 limit, while only 117 stayed under it. Still, every single one of the 239 cities broke the World Health Organisation’s tougher annual ceiling of 5 ˛g/m³. The numbers make it clear: air pollution is still a considerable health problem across the board, not just in the cities that headline the lists.
Mumbai’s air still flirts with really unhealthy PM2.5 numbers, and quick fixes just aren’t cutting it anymore. City experts say shooting clouds of dust and smoke, see-saw with rain-blamed relief, won’t solve the problem, so they’re calling for a steady, every-month plan that hits all the primary sources, from trucks to factories. On the national level, they want the clean-air rules to get a fresh look, the current program to track not just soot but irritating gases, and tougher steps, like tighter ones.
