AQI close to 'severe', 2nd worst air day of season

NEW DELHI: The capital's air quality continued to deteriorate for the fourth day running, with the city's average AQI inching closer to 'severe' levels on Sunday. The day's average air quality index was recorded at 370, in the upper range of 'very poor', the second worst of the season so far after October 30, when the index was at 373. Delhi woke up to another morning of toxic smog but, just as on the previous day, winds picked up towards late afternoon, providing some relief. The average AQI at 8 am Sunday was 391, close to the 'severe' range that starts from 401. By 11 am, the air remained just as bad, with the AQI at 389. The day's official 24-hour average is taken at 4 pm, when the air had improved a bit. The share of pollutants from farm fires in Punjab and Haryana on Delhi's PM2.5 levels continues to be low, with the figure dipping to nearly 5% from 8% on Saturday. "The wind speed reached 14-15 kmph in the afternoon. While yesterday the wind was northwesterly, coming from Punjab and Haryana, today it changed to westerly and south-westerly. Thus, the fire farm impact," said Mahesh Palawat of Skymet.'Improving Trend': CAQM says GRAP-III not needed as of now According to the Centre's Decision Support System (DSS), the share of farm fires was 5.3% on Sunday. The share has been less than 10% so far this season while in the past years it has peaked at over 40%.

The DSS did not issue any forecast on the impact of stubble burning for Monday. The air quality early warning system expects the air quality to remain within the very poor category. "The air quality is very likely to be in the very poor category from November 10 to 12," it stated. The AQI is expected to stay 'very poor' for the subsequent six days as well, the note added. Meanwhile, the Commissioner for Air Quality Management in NCR and Adjoining Areas (CAQM) said that they are not imposing strict pollution preventive measures under Grap-III. The CAQM issued a statement asserting that in the wake of Delhi's daily average AQI hovering around the higher end of the very poor category in the morning, a review meeting was held on GRAP. "However, the sub-committee, while reviewing the current air quality scenario of Delhi-NCR and forecasts for weather/meteorological conditions made available by IMD/IITM, noted that at 10am the hourly average AQI of Delhi was 391...

Given that Delhi's daily average AQI has since shown a consistent declining trend, with AQI improving to 370 at 4 pm and further improving to 365 at 5 pm today, with the dynamic model and forecasts for weather/meteorological conditions and AQI by IMD/IITM also indicating the overall AQI of Delhi to stay in the 'very poor' category in the coming days, the sub-committee opined that invocation of stage-III of GRAP is not required at the moment," CAQM stated. Delhi environment minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa pointed to a slew of measure being taken by the city govt, including installing sprinklers, fixing pollution norms for industries etc, while attacking the previous AAP govt, stating that while they let Delhi's pollution worsen for 10 years and expect it to be cleaned in 7 months. "The inaction of pollution of 10 years cannot be fixed in 7 months... AAP commented on the location of the Bawana monitoring station, which was installed by them.

They spent money on advertisements and not on fixing pollution. We are working to make the situation better," said Sirsa. Delhi, meanwhile, continued to feel the chill, recording a minimum temperature of 11.6 degress Celsius on Sunday, which was three degrees below normal. This was marginally higher than Saturday's season low of 11 degress Celsius. The maximum was 28.1 degrees Celsius, which was a degree above normal. IMD has forecast shallow fog on Monday morning, with both maximum and minimum temperatures expected to stay in a similar range.