As vast swathes of North India continued to reel under the effects of the falling mercury, a dense fog blanketed the national Capital on Saturday, leading to low visibility affecting international and domestic flights.

The poor visibility amid dip in temperature and foggy conditions resulted in disturbances to flight schedules at the Delhi’ Indira Gandhi International  Airport (IGIA), where the Flight Information Display System reported delays for 11 international and five domestic flights on Saturday. However, there was no official confirmation from the ministry of railways in connection to the delay of trains due to the fog in the national Capital.

The Centre on Saturday decided to hold off on implementing stricter measures to curb air pollution in Delhi-NCR, preferring to assess the effectiveness of the current actions. A Sub-Committee of the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), a statutory body responsible for planning air pollution mitigation measures in Delhi-NCR, reviewed the situation on Saturday, the Environment Ministry said.

Observing that GRAP Stage III curbs were implemented only a day ago, the committee decided to wait and observe the impact of the measures implemented under Stage III before considering more severe actions under Stage IV, it said.                 The central government on Friday ordered a ban on non-essential construction work and plying of BS-III petrol and BS-IV diesel four-wheelers in Delhi-NCR amid worsening air quality in the region.

As the air quality index ( AQI) in the national capital was recorded at 450 at 4 pm , which comes under the ‘severe’ category as per the central pollution control board (CPCB) data,  Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai on Saturday asked all departments concerned to reactivate their teams for effective implementation of curbs under Stage-3 of the Centre’s air pollution control plan. Data also showed December has witnessed a total six days severe category air pollution so far.

Delhi recorded a minimum temperature of 9.6 degrees Celsius, two notches above the season’s average, during the day. The maximum temperature settled at 24.4 degrees Celsius, four notches above normal, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The relative humidity oscillated between 97 and 69 per cent.

Addressing a press conference here,  Rai said that air quality in Delhi deteriorated from very poor to the severe category on Friday due to low temperatures and calm winds.