The city’s air quality was “very poor” in 18 out of the 33 monitoring stations for which data was available at 9 a.m. on Wednesday.
The air quality is likely to worsen further from the last week of October, according to government-run monitoring agency System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR).
The Air Quality Index (AQI) was “very poor” at 9 a.m. at ITO, Siri Fort, DTU, Dwarka Sector 8 and Mundka among other places, according to data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).
According to the CPCB, prolonged exposure to “very poor” air quality can lead to respiratory illness.
At 9 a.m., the overall AQI of Delhi was 298, two notches short of “very poor” category. 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’.
From Tuesday, strict pollution control measures under Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), including a ban on use of diesel generator sets, are in place in Delhi and other NCR towns. GRAP includes a set of guidelines to be followed when air quality deteriorates and it was notified in 2017.
