The air quality in the city deteriorated to the “poor” category on Wednesday and is expected to further worsen to “very poor” on Thursday, according to official data. The effect of stubble burning has increased and is likely to go up.
“The AQI is now forecast to deteriorate rapidly and slip to ‘very poor’ category by tomorrow and deteriorate further to the higher end of ‘very poor’ category by October 29. Calm local winds combined with highly favourable transport level winds (North-north westerly) at 900-950 mb height enhance stubble burning related intrusion. Any increase in fire counts in next 3 days would increaser finer particle levels of Delhi,” government-run monitoring agency SAFAR (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research) said in a statement.
On Wednesday, the contribution of stubble burning in neighbouring states to PM2.5, a chief pollutant, in Delhi was increased to 16% from 8% on Tuesday and the number of active fires counts in the region jumped to 656 from 348.
The AQI of Delhi was 232 on Wednesday, up from 139 on Tuesday and 82 on Monday, as per Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) 4 pm bulletin, which is an average of the past 24 hours and considered the day’s AQI.
An AQI between 0 and 50 is considered ‘’good’’, 51 and 100 ‘’satisfactory’’, 101 and 200 ‘’moderate’’, 201 and 300 ‘’poor’’, 301 and 400 ‘’very poor’’, and 401 and 500 ‘’severe’’.
Meanwhile, the city Government on Wednesday launched the ‘Patake Nahi, Diye Jalao’ campaign to motivate people to embrace tradition and eliminate pollution.
“The pollution levels in Delhi are very high around Diwali due to stubble burning in neighbouring states, to add to that the use of crackers during the Diwali season becomes very fatal. Especially when it comes to the elderly and the children it can be very dangerous. To eliminate this source of pollution, the government has already ordered a complete ban on sales and use of firecrackers,” Environment Minister Gopal Rai said.