Delhi Pollution Surges: GRAP Stage-1 Imposed as AQI Hits 211 Ahead of Diwali

Delhi Pollution Surges: The clean air spell in Delhi will be interrupted before the Diwali festivities because the Air Quality Early Warning System (EWS) of the Centre forecasts that the Air Quality Index will fall in the poor category this week.

On Tuesday morning, the AQI of national capital has been already falling in the poor category with the reading of 201.

It is the initial occasion when the quality of the air in the national capital fell beneath 200 since June 11, when the Delhi was reported to have 245 AQI.

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“Delhi’s air quality is very likely to be in the ‘poor’ category from October 14 till October 16. The outlook for the subsequent six days shows the air quality is likely to be between the ‘poor’ to ‘very poor’ category,” EWS projections released on Monday said.

The AQI was moderate at 169 in Delhi on Monday, 9am as reported by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). At 4pm, the 24-hour average air AQI hit 189. This was an improvement of 22 points over an AQI of 167(moderate) on Sunday.

The forecast of the next six days indicates that the air quality will be either in the category of between the poor and very bad category, EWS projections published on Monday said.

As CPCB records indicate, the Capital has had 124 consecutive days of cleaner air with 77 of them being satisfactory and 47 being moderate. However, as the monsoon withdraws, the temperatures drop, and the season of burning stubble and celebrating emissions start, specialists claim that the traditional smog season has come.

According to CPCB, air quality is considered as good when the AQI is 0-50, satisfactory when the air quality is 51-100, moderate when it is 101-200, poor when it is 201-300, very poor when it is 301-400, and severe when it is 401-500.

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Mahesh Palawat, the vice president in the Skymet meteorology informed HT that wind speed has decreased and it is fluctuating between 6-10 km/hr up to Monday.

Stubble burning is however yet to fall behind the spike in pollution. According to data provided by the Decision Support System (DSS) a model in determining the estimated contribution of sources of pollution to PM 2.5 in Delhi, stubble burning contributed only 0.62 percent of the PM2.5 in the atmosphere in Delhi on Monday, slightly higher than it contributed the day before, which was 0.24 percent.

At the same time, the Delhi government declared to designate the 41-kilometre stretch of Southern Ridge to a Reserved Forest, which will multiply the green cover in Delhi and also will enhance the quality of air.

Chief Minister Rekha Gupta went to her X and said that a significant action has been taken by the Delhi government to ensure that the capital city was not polluted and to enhance environmental balance.

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