Delhi’s air quality improved on Friday as concentration of pollutants was recorded significantly “low”. However, it is expected to remain under “Severe” category for next two days on the National Ambient Air Quality Index (NAAQI).
The System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR), a unit of Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) in its air quality forecast said, “Air quality in Delhi has improved significantly, however recovery is slow due to low surface wind speed and it continued to be in the severe category. As per the satellite, heavy fire counts were recorded during last 24 hour but presently the contribution of stubble fire emission is marginal as upper winds are northerly,” it said.
Meanwhile, values of both the Particulate Matters (PMs) — PM 10 and PM 2.5 recorded 440 and 303 microgramme per cubic.
Besides, vehicular emission and construction dust, the contribution of biomass burning in neighbouring States was low in Delhi’s air.
Delhi Environment Minister Imran Hussain also met his Ministry officials on and discussed the deteriorating air quality in the national Capital. The Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority on Thursday said it was closely monitoring the situation and if the pollution shows an increasing trend then emergency measures will be imposed in the national Capital.
The emergency measures would be implemented as prescribed under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP).
Under GRAP, stringent actions are implemented based on the air quality of the city.
The measures such as banning entry of heavy vehicles and odd-even scheme are implemented if the air quality slips to severe plus emergency category. On Thursday, the areas where the violations were recorded included Mayur Vihar Extension, Lajpat Nagar, Lutyens’ Delhi, IP extension, Dwarka and Noida Sector 78.
Other areas such as - Sonia Vihar, Patparganj, Vivek Vihar, Major Dhyanchand National Stadium, Jwaharlal Nehru Stadium, Dwarka, Mundka, Rohini, Okhla, Bawana and IGI Airport where value generally is less than 1000 µg/m3, however, Najafgarh, Alipur, Narela, Dr Karni Singh shooting range, Shri Aurobindo Marg, Pusa, Civil Lines and Mandir Marg are stations where values are found less than 500 µg/m3.