Delhi Chokes On ‘Very Poor’ Air For Fourth Day, Morning Walkers Feel The Pinch

New Delhi: The Air Quality Index (AQI) in the national capital was 336 on Wednesday morning, making it the fourth consecutive day and the third day this week that the air quality was in the ‘very poor’ category. According to SAFAR-India, the city’s AQI has been ‘very poor’ since Sunday (309). The AQI was 322 on Monday and 327 on Tuesday, as per the data from the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR)-India. Morning walkers in the city said that breathing was harder than in the summer months due to pollution.

“I feel uncomfortable breathing while running now compared to in the summer months. I have congestion. We have to be careful and take all precautions,” a morning walker near Mayur Vihar said. The air quality was ‘very poor’ in Delhi University area and Pusa, with AQI at 391 and 311, respectively at 7 am today. The air quality was also ‘very poor’ in IIT Delhi region with an AQI of 329. The Airport (T3) and Mathura Road had ‘very poor’ air quality too, with an AQI of 339 and 362 respectively.

Noida had an AQI of 391 (very poor) and Gurugram had 323 (very poor). Air Quality Index (AQI) is a tool to communicate the air quality status to people in simple terms. It converts complex air quality data of different pollutants into a single number (index value), name, and colour.

The AQI from 0 to 100 is good, from 100 to 200 is moderate, from 200 to 300 is poor, from 300 to 400 is very poor and from 400 to 500 or above is severe. Last week, Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai said that they were implementing a 15-point winter action plan one by one to curb pollution.

“Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had earlier announced a 15-point winter action plan to curb the pollution from vehicles, biomass burning, dust, etc. Now we are putting this winter action plan into action one by one to reduce pollution in the national capital,” Rai told ANI.

The Delhi Minister said that vehicles were one of the main sources of pollution, so they started the ‘Red Light on, Gaadi off’ campaign on October 26.“Now the data shows that in AQI the level of particulate matter (PM) 10 is going down and that of PM2.5 is going up. This means that pollution from vehicles and biomass burning is going up. For this, we started the ‘Red Light on, Gaadi off’ campaign,” the Delhi minister said.