Our Terms & Conditions | Our Privacy Policy
And so it begins, like clockwork. Delhi’s air quality index (AQI) on Wednesday surged past the 200 mark and settled at 235, its worst level in 99 days as dust, dry winds, and the effect of crop stubble being burnt in Punjab heralded the arrival of the national capital’s dreaded annual pollution blight.
A farmer sets fire to paddy stubble after harvesting a paddy crop in the field in Amritsar, on Wednesday. (Sameer Sehgal/HT Photo)
The routine is now familiar and Wednesday was only an appetiser, although rain later in the week is expected to offer a marginal, and temporary, respite.
For the next three months, perhaps more, Delhi’s 20 million-plus residents will inhale lungfuls of toxic air with every breath. Dipping temperatures, slowing winds and smoke from stubble fires in upwind Punjab and Haryana will drive up pollution levels to the worst in the world. The skies will turn grey, silhouettes will blur, and administrative collapse will be on display as authorities turn to the methods that have failed year after year.
ALSO READ- Mumbai rain: Schools, colleges to remain shut on Sept 26; flights, trains disrupted
Wednesday’s AQI was, to be sure, down to only a fraction of the usual factors – local emissions, a six-day dry spell and nearly still winds. But with stubble fires already peppering the farmlands of Punjab, cultivators expecting a bumper paddy crop, the wind direction set to turn northwesterly and temperatures likely to dip, experts warned that Delhi’s problem will only get more acute in the weeks to come.
In fact, this is the earliest the city’s post-monsoon AQI has dipped into the “poor” zone (a reading between 201 and 300) in six years. In 2018, the AQI passed 200 on September 29 (219).
Last year, it crossed that threshold only on October 6 (212). The year before that, it happened on October 16 (232), and in 2021 on October 7 (215).
Delhi’s AQI was last higher on June 19, when the reading hit 306.
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) categorises pollution levels on an ascending band between 0 and 500. It categorises readings between 0 and 50 as “good”, 51 and 100 as “satisfactory”, 101 and 200 as “moderate”, 201 and 300 as “poor”, 301 and 400 as “very poor” and above 401 as “severe”.
The city’s air has tumbled in recent days, buoyed largely by the absence of rains, which kept pollution in check for nearly four months from early June. The AQI first worsened to 116 on September 21, then 164 on September 22, 167 on September 23 and 197 on September 24.
Weather scientists pinned this sustained dip to calm winds and lack of rain.
“Winds were calm overnight and with no rain, we are gradually seeing a rise in pollution as pollutants accumulate in the Capital. During the day, you are also seeing dust upliftment as the soil is again dry,” said Mahesh Palawat, vice president at Skymet meteorology.
ALSO READ: Paracetamol, Pan D among 53 medicines to fail drug regulator’s quality test; raise safety concerns
However, they underscored that the spike was not an aberration fuelled by atypical weather conditions, but rather a preface to the weeks of laboured breathing that lie ahead.
Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director, research and advocacy at the Centre for Science and Environment said that in the absence of rain, Delhi starts to see a spike in pollution from October, aided by adverse meteorological conditions. “We see a dip in wind speed, little to no rain and low temperatures, all of which negatively impact AQI,” she said.
Experts also underlined that the ultimate headline number will spiral well into deep red once stubble-burning season in Punjab and Haryana gets underway starts to increase in number and long-range transport winds blow in from the northwest and bring in dark, toxic plumes from these fires. Punjab has only reported 93 farm fires so far. Last year, the state recorded 36,623 of them.
Transport winds play a key role in Delhi’s air quality. A northwesterly wind brings in smoke from farm fires in Punjab and Haryana, and most other winds push the plumes away.
These factors, combined with local emissions and the winter chill, pushed Delhi’s AQI to a peak of 468 on November 3 last year, the highest since 2021. Delhi’s all-time high AQI was 497 (severe) on November 6, 2016.
Wednesday’s pollution also shattered an unusually long period of relatively clean air for the Capital as record monsoon showers and strong winds shielded the city from the bad-air menace.
Between June 20 and September 20, Delhi’s AQI peaked only at 172 and averaged 94, giving the city a tryst with much more pleasant air than it is accustomed to, even in the non-winter months. For Delhi’s air is always bad, a function of its proximity to the desert (the Thar), its location in the plains, its high vehicular traffic (more vehicles than the next three biggest metropolitan cities combined), and the insidious habit of garbage burning. Colder temperatures, the absence of winds, and wind direction make it worse. And then, the stubble burning pushes it over the edge.
The AQI usually averages between 50 and 150 from June to September, according to CPCB records.
ALSO READ- Jammu and Kashmir assembly election: 20 of 26 assembly segments see lower turnout than 2014
Delhi has so far received 1074.6mmrain this year, well beyond the average of 774.4mmit receives all year. The weather office has predicted some showers on Friday, though these are unlikely to influence air quality to a noteworthy degree.
Delhi recorded 33 consecutive days of “satisfactory” air quality between July 28 and August 30 this year— the highest count of such days since 2020, when covid-led lockdowns and rainfall set a record streak of 51 consecutive days of good or satisfactory air quality.
Delhi’s regular winter air travails also underscore the administrative failure to control a scourge that leaves millions across the National Capital Region (NCR) at risk of a raft of severe illnesses and kicks off a political war of words
The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) — a body formed to bring Delhi’s unfettered winter pollution under control — during a meeting on Wednesday evening meanwhile decided not to invoke stage-1 measures of the Graded Response Action Plan (Grap), citing possible improvement in the coming days.
Delhi environment minister Gopal Rai, meanwhile unveiled the government’s 21 point winter action plan on Wednesday, which includes using drones for monitoring hotspots and the possibility of using artificial rain.
Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.
Aggregated From –
Comments are closed.