Delhi continues to grapple with toxic air as the air quality remained “severe” across several places in the national Capital on Tuesday.
Based on data provided by nine out of the 40 monitoring stations, the Capital’s air quality index was recorded at 397 at 4 pm, worsening from 358 on Monday and 218 on Sunday. Rest of the monitoring stations failed to generate enough data for indexing, according to the Central Pollution Control Board’s mobile application Sameer.
Air pollution levels hit the severe category (AQI above 400) at many places within the city, including Pusa Delhi (501), ITI Jehangirpuri 463, ITO (427), RK Puram (422), Punjabi Bagh (423), Anand Vihar (439) and Nehru Nagar (450).
Neighbouring Ghaziabad (356), Gurugram (386), Greater Noida (348), Noida (364) and Faridabad (384) too recorded very poor air quality. According to IQAir, a Swiss company that specialises in air quality monitoring, Delhi was the most polluted city in the world on Tuesday.
Mumbai and Kolkata ranked fifth and 10th among the most polluted cities in the world. Even as the people of Delhi reeled under severe air pollution conditions, the AAP and the BJP have accused each other for the current situation in the national Capital.
Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai reiterated that people associated with the BJP are offering “absurd” justifications for supporting firecracker bursting during Diwali, which resulted in a sharp spike in pollution levels in the national capital. Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri has blamed rise in stubble burning in AAP ruled Punjab for pollution in the national Capital. BJP MP Gautam Gambhir said the discussion on pollution should not be done only during Diwali but all around the year.
The AAP Government has listed a slew of measuresm including sprinkling of water in all the 70 Assembly constituencies and stepped up monitoring of BS-3 Petrol and BS-4 Diesel vehicles and their entry into Delhi is prohibited.
The Delhi government has deployed 215 mobile anti-smog guns to sprinkle water on roads across Delhi. There will be 70 mobile anti-smog guns for the 70 Assembly constituencies of Delhi to sprinkle water.According to a system developed by the Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology to identify the contribution of different pollution sources, stubble-burning accounted for 12 per cent of the air pollution in the capital on Tuesday. It is likely to be 14 per cent on Wednesday and 6 per cent on Thursday.Data from the Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modeling from Space (CREAMS) run by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) showed Punjab on Tuesday reported 1,776 stubble-burning incidents, taking the total number of farm fires to 28,117 while air quality indices in Haryana and the border state were in ‘poor’ and ‘very poor’ categories. The fresh figure indicated that the crop residue burning cases in the state have started rising again. The state had reported 639 such cases on November 9, six on November 10, 104 on November 11, 987 on November 12 and 1,624 on November 13. Paddy straw burning in Punjab and Haryana is considered one of the reasons behind the alarming spike in air pollution levels in Delhi in October and November. Out of a total 28,117 farm fires recorded from September 15 till November 14, Sangrur recorded the maximum stubble burning cases of 4,961, followed by 2,554 in Ferozepur, 2,063 in Mansa, 2,061 in Bathinda and 1,916 in Tarn Taran.
