The heart of the country, Delhi never fails to be in the news for its poor air quality and this time, too, it has been ranked ‘very poor’. The air monitoring agency, ‘System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research’ (SAFAR), on Tuesday estimated the air quality of Delhi to be ‘very poor’ with Air Quality Index (AQI) hovering at a whopping 326. However, PM2.5 has been the lead pollutant instead of PM10 this time as a mark of wintertime.
The AQI has five different ranges, such as between 51 and 100, 101-200, 201-300, 301-400 and 401-500. The air quality falling under any of these five ranges are considered as ‘satisfactory/very good’, ‘moderate’, ‘poor’, ‘very poor’ and ‘hazardous’ respectively.
“The overall air quality in Delhi was in the ‘very poor’ category on Monday morning as forecast. The air quality is likely to worsen in North India due to cold waves and low temperatures… Stubble fire counts with sufficient potential as estimated from SAFAR-multi-satellite products significant and around 401. Hence, the stubble burning share in PM2.5 in Delhi’s air is estimated at 7 percent for Monday. The AQI is forecast to deteriorate to the middle-0end for the next two days,” SAFAR prediction asserted.
While Delhi did perform very poorly, NCR is no better. It too, comes under the ‘very poor’ category with Gurugram and Noida with an AQI of 280 and 345 respectively.
