Despite improvement, Delhi air quality in ‘severe’ category

Samad Hoque

New Delhi, December 24

The air quality in the Capital registered a slight improvement on Sunday. After the huge spike in the air quality index (AQI) to 447 on Saturday, AQI stabilised at 411 on Sunday.

The AQI crossed the 450-mark in various localities of Delhi. Shadipur recorded the highest AQI at 470 while the AQI at ITO, Jahangirpuri, Mundka, Punjabi Bagh and Wazirpur was 459, 453, 451 and 454, respectively.

The AQI of Delhi has been in the ‘severe’ category for the last three days. On December 21, it was in ‘very poor’ category at 361, however it moved to the ‘severe’ category on Friday, when the AQI in the city was recorded at 409.

The Early Warning System under the Earth Sciences Ministry predicted that the air quality is likely to improve and shift to ‘very poor’ category on Monday and remain so on Tuesday. However, it will return to ‘severe’ category on Wednesday.

The data from the R-AASMAN, a source apportionment study by Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, IIT-Delhi and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) showed that vehicular and biomasses burning were the major contributors to pollution in the Capital.

The contribution of vehicular traffic to pollution was recorded at 44 per cent and bio mass burning at 34 per cent. Solid waste attributed to 10-15 per cent of the pollution.

Among the neighbouring areas of Delhi, Ghaziabad, Greater Noida and Noida recorded AQI at 360, 376 and 368, respectively.

Meanwhile, the minimum temperature in Delhi was 7.6°C and maximum temperature was 25.9°C on Sunday.