Thick smog blanket engulfed Delhi and National Capital Region on Tuesday with a high level of air pollutants and mist fog. According to Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), dense fog after December 9 with high pollutant values will cause “moderate” visible conditions. National Air Quality Index (NAQI) has marked “hazardous” to Delhi’s air quality. The average values of prominent pollutants, particulate matter (PM) 10 and 2.5 were recorded at 346 µgm-3 and 174 µgm-3 that is three-fold higher than the prescribed limit of IMD.
According to Met department, dense to very dense fog is all set to make a comeback over Delhi-NCR. This will not only curtail the day maximums but will also increase the air pollution manifolds. “Thick fog has been evading the northern plains including Delhi for the last few days, leading to good visibility conditions. This has been on account of flow of cold and dry north westerlies with increased wind speed. Now, weather conditions are all set to change during the next few days. Wind pattern is likely to change to easterlies from north westerlies during the next 24 hours. Humid winds have been blowing from the fresh well-marked low pressure area in Southeast Bay of Bengal. Wind speed is also likely to drop to light to very light,” the Met department officials said.
The minimum temperature is recorded 9.4 degrees Celsius, normal for this time of the year even as poor visibility conditions affected rail and air traffic. Foggy weather continued to disrupt train operation with 64 north-bound trains including Rajdhani and Shatabdi running behind schedule by several hours while 12 trains were cancelled on Tuesday. Besides, departures of 30 trains were rescheduled and four trains were diverted due to bad weather condition.
As per the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), United States (US) the smoky conditions have affected the visibility factors in the flight operations. The Flight Delay Index (FDI) of FAA has marked “red” to major international airports of India. The federation has measured one mile visibility on Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) while at Mumbai airport, the visibility was just two miles.
While, the delay rate of flight operation was three with “moderate” status on FDI, the Delhi International Airport limited (DIAl) has made the extensive arrangements to minimise inconvenience to passengers and ensure continuity of flight operations during low Visibility Period (lVP).
Along with the Air Traffic Control (ATC), DIAl has introduced Pre-Departure sequencing tool as part of the Delhi Airport-Collaborative Decision Making (DA-CDM) process.
I Prabhakara Rao, DIAl CEO said that we are fully prepared to handle flight operations this year. “The CAT-IIIB system installed at Delhi Airport is capable of handling flight arrivals with Runway Visibility Range of up to 50 Meters. The Metrological department has installed 18 RVR devices at Delhi Airport with full redundancy on main RWYs 11/29 and 10/28 and partial redundancy on RWY 27,” said Rao.
“We aim to reduce delays and congestion due to fog, by devising a plan that would ensure smooth flow of flight information, on an almost real time basis, to the passengers,” he added.
On other hand, Delhi Environment Minister Imran Hussain directed various land owning agencies in the city to speed up vigil at sites under their jurisdiction to prosecute offenders who violate norms by burning leaves, garbage etc in the open during winter months.