Delhi air quality remains poor, may worsen: CPCB
Delhi’s air quality continued to remain in the ‘poor’ category on Friday even as the pollution levels spiked a little in the evening as per monitoring stations across the national capital.
Authorities maintained that the air quality may worsen to ‘very poor’ levels during the coming weekend due to stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana besides the Dussehra celebrations in the city.
According to data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the overall air quality index (AQI) at 4pm on Friday was 276, which falls under ‘poor’ category.
However, the air quality started deteriorating in the evening between 6 pm and 8 pm according to the CPCB’s realtime AQI data. Ten of the 36 monitoring stations across the city recorded ‘very poor’ air quality in the evening. The areas that witnessed ‘very poor’ air quality at 8 pm include Anand Vihar, Bawana, Dwarka sector-8, Jahagirpuri, Mundka, Narela, Rohini, Shadipur, Wazirpur and CRRI Mathura Road.
A senior CPCB official said the air quality may worsen over the next couple of days due to the combined effects of burning of effigies on Dussehra, stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana and meteorological reasons such as low winds in Delhi.
The official also said that the effect of burning of effigies across the city would be visible from Saturday onwards as the air quality would deteriorate because of the light variable winds in the city, which are likely to help accumulate pollutants.
On Thursday, the AQI value for Delhi was 297 in ‘poor’ category while on Wednesday it was 313 under ‘very poor’ category. On Friday it improved to the ‘poor’ category, with an AQI value of 276.
The levels of PM 10 and PM 2.5 – most prominent pollutants in Delhi-NCR – have more than doubled the safe standard recorded at 314 and 130 micrograms per cubic metres, respectively.
NEW DELHI:
The safe standard for PM 10 is 100 micrograms per cubic metres while for PM 2.5 it is 60 micrograms per cubic metres.
According to the CPCB, AQI
between 0 and 50 is considered ‘good’, 51 and 100 ‘satisfactory’, 101 and 200 ‘moderate’, 201 and 300 ‘poor’, 301 and 400 ‘very poor’, and 401 and 500 ‘severe’.