The air quality of the city continued to be in ‘severe’ category on Thursday and is likely to improve to ‘very poor’ category on Friday, said government-run monitoring agency System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR).
The air pollution has been in the ‘severe’ category for five out of the past six days, according to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).
On Thursday, the average level of PM2.5 — deadly respirable particles, which is a chief pollutant — was 282.3 ug/m3, more than four times the safe limit of 60ug/m3, as per Indian standards, in Delhi and NCR at 7 p.m., the CPCB said. The level is, however, more than 11 times the safe limit of 25 ug/m3, as set by the World Health Organization.
“Very calm conditions are persisting during stable night time with a sign of clustered emission hot spots, probably due to slow and congested traffic, leading to the accumulation of pollutants near the ground under very cool temperature,” SAFAR said. “We have been getting ground reports of a lot of traffic congestion. This accumulates and causes pollution,” a SAFAR official explained.
The city’s air quality index (AQI) on Thursday was 417, slightly down from Wednesday’s 437, according to the 4 p.m. bulletin of the CPCB that is the average of the past 24 hours.
“The AQI is forecast to improve to the higher end of ‘very poor’ category by January 3 and likely to remain in the same category on January 4,” SAFAR said.
Friday’s top three air pollution hot spots of Delhi are likely to be Vinobapuri, Jahangirpuri, and Dwarka.
