NEW DELHI: A thick layer of ‘smog’ engulfed the city on Monday afternoon and the haze persisted till late into the night. The air quality slipped within the ‘very poor’ category with an overall AQI of 392 as against 352 on Sunday. However, the hourly AQI touched the ‘severe’ category with 402 being recorded at 8pm. The share of stubble burning in Delhi’s PM2.5 was 22%, according to System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting Research (SAFAR). The air quality is likely to deteriorate and remain in the ‘very poor’ or ‘severe’ category on Tuesday. Track the pollution level in your cityWith GRAP III having been implemented in the city, one would assume that dust control would be a priority. Virtually all government construction projects in the city have been exempted from the construction ban. Because of the sheer scale of these works, they generate a huge amount of dust. The measures to be taken to mitigate its effect are known but implementation is lax. City’s hourly AQI touches severe on Monday night The air quality deteriorated within the ‘very poor’ category with an overall Air Quality Index (AQI) of 392 on Monday as against 352 on Sunday. However, the hourly AQI touched ‘severe’ category as AQI was 402 at 8pm. A thick layer of ‘smog’ engulfed the city on Monday afternoon. The share of stubble burning to Delhi’s PM2.5 was 22%, according to System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting Research (SAFAR). The air quality is likely to deteriorate and remain in ‘very poor’ to ‘severe’ category on Tuesday. Aurobindo Marg, DelhiSatellite images detected a smog layer over north-west India around 1.30pm. The visibility at Safdarjung, which is the city’s base station, dipped to 1200-1500 metres, according to India Meteorological Department (IMD). “Since October 28, Delhi has been recording calm wind conditions. A wind speed of around 5-7km is recorded just for a few hours during the day, but it drops to nil most of the time,” said RK Jenamani, senior scientist, IMD. Met officials said meteorological conditions are highly unfavourable over Delhi/NCR. “Winds are mostly calm or coming from Northwesterly direction. Atmospheric conditions are stable, which are favourable for accumulation of pollutants. The maximum mixing layer height has been reduced to less than 500m, which is not allowing the effective dispersion of pollutants,” said VK Soni, head, environment and research centre, IMD. Sarai Kale Khan, DelhiHe added that the fire counts over Punjab and Haryana are increasing. Fire counts over Punjab (2,131) and Haryana (70) on Monday were more than those recorded on Sunday. Fire counts were 1,761 and 112 in Punjab and Haryana on Saturday. Meanwhile, Central Pollution Control Board’s Sameer app faced a technical glitch on Thursday morning, but was restored by 4pm. Though the app is updated every hour, there was no update on the app between 5am and 4pm. Similarly, the website of CPCB, which also shows real-time AQI of all major cities, didn’t update the AQI readings during the same period.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/delhi-aqi-hovers-near-severe-but-dust-control-lax-at-govt-project-sites/articleshow/95216514.cms