Delhi air quality plunges to ‘severe’ again, no improvement today

The last time Delhi’s air quality was recorded in the ‘severe’ category was on November 23.

A significant drop in wind speed and low temperatures are behind the spike in AQI, IMD officials said.

Of the 35 functional monitoring stations, 28 recorded ‘severe’ AQI on Tuesday. It was higher than 450 in Alipur, Anand Vihar, Ashok Vihar, Bawana, Burari, CRRI Mathura Road, North Campus, Okhla Phase 2, Sirifort, Sonia Vihar and Vivek Vihar.

The Delhi Police, meanwhile, held an inter-state coordination meeting with officers in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to discuss management of the flow of traffic to Delhi, an officer said. Joint pickets at some borders that see heavy traffic are being consolidated, he added. These will challan BS III petrol and BS IV diesel cars, since they are not allowed on roads when restrictions are announced.

Schools in Delhi, meanwhile, have started implementing a hybrid mode of learning.

One prominent South Delhi school, for instance, wrote to parents to list down their preference on how classes should be conducted, with most parents writing back to continue lessons in school.

“We have a system where the live feed from the classroom can be accessed by children at home but it is usually a little disruptive. Most parents also want their children to go to school and study, unless they suffer from chronic diseases,” said the school principal who didn’t want to be named.

Classes for all junior schools, meanwhile, are running completely online.

The morning temperature, meanwhile, remained two degrees below normal at 5.9 degrees Celsius. The maximum was 24.4 degrees Celsius, two degrees above normal.

According to the IMD forecast, the city is expected to see moderate to dense fog on Wednesday with the maximum expected to be around 24 degrees Celsius and the minimum around 6 degrees Celsius.