With calm conditions preventing the dispersion of pollutants, Delhi recorded its tenth ‘severe’ air day for the month on Friday, with a 24-hour average AQI of 415 at 4 pm. By 7 pm, the AQI had deteriorated further to 422. Of the air quality monitoring stations in the city, the worst AQI of 473 was recorded at Jahangirpuri and Bawana at 7 pm.
According to the forecast issued by the Air Quality Early Warning System for Delhi, the AQI is set to remain in the ‘severe’ category on Saturday and could be ‘very poor’ on Sunday and Monday. The wind speed is likely to pick up marginally from what were calm conditions on Friday to a speed of around 4 to 6 kmph at on Sunday, and further to around 4 to 12 kmph on Monday, with a western disturbance set to affect northwest India from Sunday onwards.
The worst AQI that the city has recorded so far this month is 468 on November 3.
Meanwhile, light rainfall or thundershowers are also on the India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecast for Delhi on Monday.
Delhi’s minimum temperature was around 9.4 degrees Celsius early on Friday, close to the 9.2 degrees recorded on Thursday, and two notches above the normal for this time of the year. The minimum temperature is set to remain at around 9 or 10 degrees over the weekend, the forecast indicates.
With around 191 farm fires in Punjab on Friday, going by data from the Punjab Remote Sensing Centre, the contribution of stubble burning to PM2.5 levels in Delhi was estimated to be low on Friday, at around 2.177%, according to the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology’s Decision Support System (DSS).
With the farm fire contribution being low, emissions from Delhi itself and surrounding districts in the NCR have contributed to high PM2.5 levels in the national capital on Friday, the DSS estimated, with the contribution from Delhi’s transport sector likely to be around 12.171%, that from Ghaziabad at 14.209%, and the contribution from Noida at 12.476%.
Environment Minister Gopal Rai, who held a meeting with officials of the Environment Department and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee on Friday, said that the Transport Department and Traffic Police have been directed to strictly implement the ban that has been imposed on BS-III petrol and BS-IV diesel vehicles in the city.
The real-time source apportionment study that is underway using data from a supersite at Rouse Avenue estimated that on Friday evening, the single largest contributor to PM2.5 levels at the site was biomass burning (35%), followed by vehicular emissions (27%). “As in winter, the incidence of biomass burning is increasing everywhere. All concerned departments, especially the MCD, Revenue Department, NDMC, Delhi Cantonment Board, DDA, etc, have been instructed to conduct a special campaign to prevent biomass burning. The pollution situation will remain the same for two-three days, after which there is a possibility of improvement,” Rai said.
Meanwhile, the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which had taken suo motu cognizance of ‘poor,’ ‘very poor’ and ‘severe’ AQI in different cities across the country, and had earlier this month asked the Chief Secretaries of the States where towns and cities are recording AQI in these categories to take action, has noted in an order issued after a hearing earlier this week, that the AQI in different cities “does not depict any satisfactory efforts by the concerned authorities,” and that “the prevailing steps by the State authorities have not brought about the fruitful results”.
“The air quality index in the concerned cities continued to be ‘poor,’ ‘very poor’ or ‘severe’ with some fluctuation,” the order noted. Directing the state authorities to “make concerted efforts” to improve air quality, the Tribunal’s Principal Bench has also directed that the States disclose, in their next report, the cities for which funds have been received under the National Clean Air Programme and Fifteenth Finance Commission, the extent of the funds received, and the details of their utilization.
