A blanket of dense fog enveloped the national capital on Thursday, delaying 14 flights and 60 trains.
“The minimum temperature recorded at 8.30 a.m. was 5° Celsius, two notches below normal while the humidity was recorded at 100 %,” a Meteorological Department official said.
Dense fog curtailed visibility to below 50 metres at 5.30 a.m and improved slightly to 50 metres by 8.30 a.m.
Airport officials said 14 flights were delayed due to the fog.
According to a Railway official,92 trains were running late, 44 trains had to be rescheduled and 19 cancelled.
Meanwhile, the Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal’s office, in a statement on Thursday, said overloaded trucks would be restricted in the capital and new centres to test the fitness of commercial vehicles set up soon. While reviewing the government’s plan to prevent air pollution, Mr. Baijal was informed by the Transport Department that it would be taking measures to stop the entry of overloaded trucks and to penalise such vehicles.
In addition,2,000 buses would be procured, route rationalisation of the entire public transport carried out and automation and augmentation of fitness centres done in eight to 16 months.
The Environment Department said that the deployment of Home Guards as environment marshals would be increased from the existing 14 to 70 soon.
(With inputs from Damini Nath)
