Mumbai’s environmental budget remains under 1% of the city’s total capital spending for 2026–27, and that’s a pretty big mismatch when you look at how serious the city’s environmental problems are. Out of ₹48,164 crore in capital spending, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) set aside only ₹159.82 crore for its Environment and Climate Change Department, which is just 0.33% of the whole budget. Sure, this year’s number is almost double the ₹76.16 crore from last year’s revised estimate, but even with more money, people say it’s nowhere near enough.

Project MANAS and Air Quality Monitoring Boost

Among the most significant projects that have managed to make the most out of the limited budget is Project MANAS (Mumbai Air Network for Advanced Sciences), which aims to set up 75 low-cost air quality sensors across the city. This project, undertaken in partnership with IIT Kanpur, will help augment the existing 28 continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations (CAAQMS) and help offer hyper-local AQI information to the public.

According to Mumbai’s environment department, this enhanced monitoring capacity will help the civic body better understand pollution hotspots and target their efforts more effectively, and localised data is expected to help both government agencies and citizens respond to daily pollution trends with greater precision.

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Pollution Mitigation and On‑Ground Measures

The BMC is enforcing its 28-point construction site air quality mitigation guidelines to help reduce pollution by requiring construction companies to use misting and fogging machines, sprinklers, and on-site monitoring equipment. They reported that nearly 90 percent of developers have complied with this mandate by installing monitoring displays at their job sites.

According to Municipal Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani, air pollution results from multiple causes (including vehicle emissions), meteorological factors (such as wind, humidity, and temperature), and construction actions in the city. He said that now city leaders need to speak about air pollution and how to reduce it, in responsible and collaborative ways.

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Balancing Priorities Amid Rising Challenges

Although environmental funding has increased since last year, civic action groups and experts believe that funding levels must be greatly increased to keep pace with the impacts of environmental and climate change that have occurred and continue to occur in Mumbai. As sea level rise continues, urban heat island effects increase, and air quality continues to decline, an increase in environmental budget allocation that is only incremental could ultimately be insufficient to achieve significant changes.

In the process of creating sustainability goals for the long term, the discussion regarding budget priorities will continue to become more intense in direct response to citizens wanting cleaner air, creating more green spaces, and developing climate-resilient infrastructure. Mumbai’s environmental budget remains under 1%, which will serve as a wake-up call, as well as an indicator of how much more work there is to do in the area of environmental governance in the city.

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