As Delhi recorded season’s worst air quality with Air Quality Index (AQI) 315 µgm-3 on Friday, the Supreme Court-mandated Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) said construction activities in Delhi and NCR will be banned between 6 pm and 6 am from October 26 to October 30.
System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR) said air may deteriorate further with values -688 µgm-3 (PM10) and 382 (PM 2.5) µgm-3 on Sunday.
In a letter to Chief Secretaries of Delhi, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh, EPCA chairman Bhure Lal also issued directions to close down coal-based industries, barring power plants, in satellite towns of Faridabad, Gurugram, Ghaziabad, Noida, Greater Noida, Sonepat and Bahadurgarh during the period.
The ban follows a slew of recommendations from a 10-member anti-pollution task force led by Central Pollution Control Board’s Member Secretary Prashant Gargava.
Bhurelal asked agencies to take strict action to check stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana, and ensure enforcement of the Supreme Court’s directions regarding firecrackers and impound visibly polluting vehicles.
“Hot mix plants, stone crushers and construction activities, such as earthwork, be banned between 6 pm and 6 am from October 26 to 30 in Delhi and NCR,” the order said.
The EPCA ordered the Delhi Traffic Police and adjacent NCR towns to deploy additional manpower to ensure smooth movement of vehicles in all areas, especially the identified high-traffic corridors in the national Capital.
It also directed that the district administrations of Delhi-NCR ensure zero-tolerance towards operation of illegal industries and use of unauthorised fuel.
All these measures are part of the CPCB-formulated Graded Response Action Plan, which lists stricter anti-pollution measures to be followed according to the severity of the situation.
“According to the task force’s assessment, the air quality situation during the next few days due to festival, meteorology, stubble burning is expected to be challenging,” the EPCA chairman said.
Two days before Diwali, the national Capital’s air quality dropped to season’s worst on Friday, with the decreased wind speed leading to accumulation of pollutants and affecting dispersion.
Meanwhile in Diwali air quality forecast, SAFAR said the highest impact of fire cracker emissions is expected in the early morning of October 28.
In a normal course, the stubble burning induced impact is expected to be moderate and if no additional emissions due to firecrackers are added then air quality will remain in middle range of very poor during Diwali period October 27-28, 2019.
“However, if 50 per cent of the total load of fire crackers (as compared to average of diwali-2017 and 18 is added, the AQI may plunge into severe category for a short period but with relatively much less magnitude (half) than 2018 Diwali period,” said SAFAR.
“As higher boundary layer winds are likely to flush out the expected high impact of firecracker emissions, AQI will be soon return back to very poor within a day and then descent to higher range of very poor on October 29 unlike 2018 when it persisted for several days,” it said.