Delhi air quality improves a little

New Delhi: After seven days of “severe” air quality, the national capital made an improvement to “very poor” category on Tuesday. 

The smog, which had shrouded the city and NCR areas since last Monday evening, had dissipated and Delhiites woke up to less hazy skies as the air quality index showed a substantial improvement from Monday’s 460 to 308 on Tuesday. 

The average concentration of ultrafine pollutants like PM (particulate matter) 10 and PM 2.5 in the air reduced substantially on Tuesday. As per ministry of earth sciences’ SAFAR, while PM 10 was recorded at 375 microgram per cubic metre (µg/m³), PM 2.5 was at 236 µg/m³ — both in the ‘very poor’ zone.

Even though the concentration is much above the safe standard of 100 µg/m³ and 60 µg/m³ for PM 10 and PM 2.5 respectively, it was a relief for the city that has been seeing hazardous air quality levels, even calling for emergency measures like closing down of schools, ban on construction activity, and ban on entry of trucks. 

According to the forecast on SAFAR’s (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research) website, the air quality is set to improve further on Wednesday as PM 10 is likely to be recorded in the ‘poor’ category. 

“Improved weather conditions at local scale have helped in the speedy recovery of Delhi AQ (air quality) from external sources,” said a Safar report.

Experts at CPCB (Central pollution Control Board) and Safar said that the external pumping from stubble burning and subsidence from gulf dust storm has stopped as a result of slow wind speed (5-8kmph) and change in direction (westerly) at 700-850 hPa. 

Earlier, the meteorological department (MeT) had also predicted light rain on Wednesday, which is likely to disperse the pollutants.