DELHI POLICE TO GET NEW HQ TODAY

Stubble burning touched season’s highest share

NEW DELHI: Air Quality Index (AQI) in the national Capital on Wednesday reached hazardous level, with many areas reaching a 450 above mark.

According to data shared by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) areas such as North Campus (446), Anand Vihar (465) and Wazirpur (462) crossed the “severe” category. Post Diwali, all the above-mentioned areas were juggling between 300 and 350.

Meanwhile, stubble burning has touched season's highest share. According to Environment Ministry's System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR),

“The overall air quality of Delhi after recovering from firecracker smoke has again plunged into severe since wee hours of today purely attributed to stubble fire which has touched season's highest share of 35 percent on Wednesday.”

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) officials have also confirmed that “outside factors” such as stubble burning are the main cause of increasing pollution in the city. However, SAFAR added that in the last 24 hours stubble burning incidents have come down.

This could contribute to various factors such as stringent actions taken by the authorities to stop crop burning.

“As evident from SAFARmulti-satellite fire product, effective stubble fire counts of Haryana and Punjab has now significantly declined to 1057 during past 24 hrs as compared to the previous day of 2577,” said a report by SAFAR.

The Central-government based agency has also stated that the air condition might “improve” by November 1 unless there is a huge increase in stubble burning, while the condition will remain “severe” on Thursday as well.