Air quality still 'very poor'
New Delhi: A layer of smoky haze shrouded Delhi on Monday as its air quality deteriorated to the upper end of the "very poor" category on Monday due to calmer winds.
The air quality is forecast to become worse over the next two days due to unhelpful meteorological conditions. Favourable wind speed — 15 to 20 kmph — is predicted to bring a considerable improvement from November 11.
The Capital's 24-hour average air quality index worsened from 354 on Monday to 372 on Tuesday. It was 339 on Sunday and 381 on Saturday.
An AQI between zero 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".
Farm fires in Punjab dropped from 2,487 on Monday to 605 on Tuesday. Their share in Delhi's PM2.5 pollution dipped from 14 per cent on Monday to 9 per cent on Tuesday, according to data from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute and SAFAR,
a forecasting agency under the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences.
The haze during the day lowered visibility to 800 meters and 900 meters at the Safdarjung and Palam airports, respectively, an official at the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
Mahesh Palawat, vice president (meteorology and climate change), Skymet Weather, said the air quality is likely to become worse before improving on Friday.
"Though the contribution of stubble burning is not significant, calmer local winds are slowing accumulation of locally generated pollutants," he said, adding that the wind speed is likely to improve to 15-20 kmph from Friday onwards.
The Delhi government on Monday decided to reopen primary classes from November 9 and revoke the order asking 50 per cent of its staff to work from home in view of improvement in the city's air quality over the last two days.
However, plying of BS-III petrol and BS-IV diesel four-wheelers in Delhi will
remain banned under stage 3 of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai
had said.
Violation of the ban could invite a fine of Rs 20,000. Vehicles deployed for emergency services, and government and election-related work are exempted.
