Toxic air: Delhi-NCR AQI ‘severe’; govt says ‘no quick recovery’

New Delhi, Nov 7 : Along with bad air, there’s bad news for residents of Delhi-NCR, the Ministry of Earth Sciences informed that overall AQI in the region has deteriorated to ‘severe’ category on Saturday morning and there is “no quick recovery” in sight unless “a drastic reduction of stubble fire counts takes place”.
Delhi’s Air Quality Index was 405, while that of Ghaziabad was 432; Greater Noida 418; Millennium City Gurugram 411, Noida 404 and Faridabad a 410.
SAFAR has synergized stubble fire counts over Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and neighbouring areas which increased and stood at 4,528 as on Friday — the highest this season.
“Despite moderate day time dispersion condition, air quality has declined, owing to sustained unusually high fire emissions. Surface winds have become calm today morning and pollutants are accumulating near the surface,” said the ministry in a statement on Saturday.
The boundary layer wind direction is Northwesterly, and favourable for the fire-related intrusion to Delhi-NCR region, stubble burning share in PM 2.5 in Delhi’s air is estimated at 32 per cent for Saturday, said the ministry. However surface winds are forecast to decrease on Sunday and Monday.
“No quick recovery is expected unless a drastic reduction in fire counts takes place. Air quality is forecast to stay at the ‘Severe’ to the higher end of ‘Very Poor’ category for the next two days.