India, Dec. 18 -- In an effort to improve the city's air quality (AQI), the BMC, over the last 16 days, has issued stop-work notices to 121 construction sites, both government and private, and show-cause notices to another 353 sites for not following pollution norms. This action, said the civic body, had led to a significant improvement during the first half of December compared to the same period last year-where the AQI was 167-158 in December 1-16 last year, this year it stands at 105-113.

Deputy municipal commissioner (Environment and Climate Change) Avinash Kate, while confirming this, said that the BMC also used misting machines at 253 locations and undertook road cleaning with water on 376 locations. Additional municipal commission...