City’s AQI ‘very poor’ again, Grap Stage 3 to stay: CAQM

NEW DELHI: Delhi’s air quality worsened, entering the “very poor” zone on Friday as calm local winds did little to wash pollutants away, prompting the central pollution control commission to underscore that restrictions under Stage 3 of the Graded Response Action Plan will remain in place across the National Capital Region (NCR) for now.

This means that BS-III petrol and BS-IV diesel vehicles will be barred, as will private construction.

The city logged an air quality index (AQI) of 346 on Friday, according to the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) 4pm bulletin, up from 295 a day ago.

An AQI between 201 and 300 is classified as “poor”, and 301 and 400 is “very poor”.

A subcommittee of the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) on Friday said actions under Grap Stage 3 will continue due to the current meteorological conditions.

“Considering the significant spike in Delhi’s overall AQI from 260 (Wednesday) to 346 in the last two days, northwesterly wind flow conducive to increasing the impact of farm fires on the AQI of Delhi and the need to continue with the steps to prevent deterioration of air quality... ongoing actions under Stage 3 of Grap shall continue and should not be withdrawn at this stage,” said CAQM in a note on Friday.

Punjab clocked 3,916 farm fires on Friday, the most so far this season, according to state data.

Smoke from stubble fires contributed to 19% of Delhi’s PM2.5 levels on Friday, up from 8% on Thursday and the highest since 21% on November 5, according to data from the Union ministry of earth science’s air quality monitoring centre, System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (Safar).

According to Safar, the air quality is expected to stay in the “very poor” category on Saturday.

The maximum temperature on Friday settled at 28.5°C, a degree below normal. The minimum, meanwhile, settled at 14.6°C, a degree above the normal for this time of year.