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Vehicles move on roads amid a dust storm in New Delhi, on Thursday, May 15, 2025.
| Photo Credit: ANI
Air quality of Delhi and other parts of the National Capital Region (NCR) deteriorated to the upper end of the “poor” category on Thursday, mainly due to dust storm like conditions, as per official data. The air quality of Delhi is expected to improve to “moderate” category by Saturday.
Dust was advected from north Pakistan by strong lower level westerly winds affecting Delhi, Punjab, and Haryana from late Wednesday night, said Krishna Mishra, a scientist at the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
The spike in air pollution led to a war of words between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with both blaming each other for the air pollution.
Four engine BJP government. AQI reached beyond 500. Delhi has never had so much pollution in this season. The four-engine government has ruined Delhi in every area,” AAP Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj said. “The people of Delhi are being deceived. The weather app is showing an AQI of 500, while government AQI monitors are showing completely different data,” he added.
Senior AAP leader and Leader of Opposition Atishi claimed that Delhi’s AQI has never been this high in May and asked whether the BJP will take responsibility for the worsening air pollution.
Responding to Ms. Atishi, Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa said that it’s “unfortunate” that a former CM was using a natural sandstorm to score political points, especially when the real blame lies in a decade of neglect under AAP.
“Today’s AQI spike is due to an extreme weather event, not misgovernance. But let’s talk about real misgovernance, Atishi ji…
For 10 years, AAP allowed Delhi to drown in mountains of untreated legacy waste, broken and dust-choked roads with zero accountability on pollution! AAP turned Delhi into a dump yard and now wants to shift blame every time Nature reacts. Atishi ji, but yes — we will clean 10 years of AAPda,” he said in a post on X.
Moderate to poor
Delhi’s overall 24-hour average air quality index (AQI) was 292 (poor) on Thursday, up from 135 (moderate) a day earlier, as per the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) daily official bulletin, which is considered as the day’s official AQI.
The air pollution was — over 13 times — the limit prescribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), according to official data.
The overall level of PM2.5 (a chief pollutant) in Delhi was as high as 196.1 micrograms per cubic meter at 3 p.m. on Thursday, as per CPCB data, which is 13.07 times the WHO’s permissible limit of 15 micrograms per cubic meter for a 24-hour period.
“There was a high north-south pressure gradient over Northwest India which caused strong dust raising surface winds of 30-40 kmph over Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and north Rajasthan from the night of 14th May to the morning of 15th May. Under the influence of these strong winds dust was advected from West Rajasthan to Delhi NCR across north Rajasthan, south Punjab and south Haryana leading to reduction in visibility with IGI Airport Delhi reporting lowest Visibility of 1200 m intermittently during the period,” an official statement from the IMD issued on Thursday evening read.
The AQI is a measurement of air pollution on a scale of 0-500. A higher AQI means an increase in air pollution. An AQI reading between 401 and 450 is considered ‘severe’, and 451 and 500 ‘severe-plus’.
Published – May 16, 2025 10:39 am IST
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