An anti-smog gun being used to curb air pollution, in New Delhi, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (PTI Photo)
The Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi inched towards the ‘very poor’ category, touching 272 (poor) as of 10 am on Saturday. A thin layer of smog also engulfed the city today morning.
Anand Vihar in Delhi recorded the worst AQI of 436 (severe), followed by seven areas seeing the air quality index dip to the ‘very poor’ category —Mundka (372), Jahangirpuri (349), Narela (329), Wazirpur (361), Dwarka (336), Rohini (333), and Bawana (367).
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The first set of emergency response measures (GRAP Stage-1) had already kicked in on Tuesday.
Delhi’s air quality usually sees a dip starting October, as the monsoon winds recede and are replaced primarily by northwesterlies. The combination of a dip in temperature, farm fires in neighbouring states and calm wind mean that pollutants get accumulated in the city’s air during this time, each year.
There are six categories of AQI, namely ‘Good’ (0-50), ‘Satisfactory’ (50-100), ‘Moderately polluted’ (100-200), ‘Poor’ (200-300), ‘Very Poor’ (300-400), and ‘Severe’ (400-500).
What’s happening in the rest of the country?
The AQI levels in cities including Mumbai (62), Bengaluru (56), Pune (57) and Ahmedabad (62) were in the ‘satisfactory’ category as of 10 am, as per the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) forecast.
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Further, Hyderabad’s air quality remains ‘good’ with an AQI of 33.
In states neighbouring Delhi, several prominent cities in Haryana like Ambala, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Hisar, Panipat and Sonipat showed a downward trend with the AQI crossing the 200-mark.
Major cities in Punjab, too, saw the AQI dip to the ‘poor’ category.
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