Delhi gasps for breath as AQI enters ‘severe’ zone
The city's AQI stood at 418 from Tuesday's figure of 334.
The overall Air Quality Index (AQI) in the national capital continued to languor in the ‘Very poor’ category with an AQI of 317, as per the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR).
This morning, the AQI was 348 (very poor) at the Delhi University area, whereas the air quality at the IIT Delhi was under ‘poor’ at 273.
Delhi Airport Terminal fared no better with an AQI of 323 (very poor).
Similarly, Noida too breathed into the ‘poor category’ with AQI at 372.
Meanwhile, Gurugram was better placed in the ‘poor category’ with an AQI of 276.
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Air Quality Index is a tool for effectively communicating air quality status to people in terms that are easy to understand. It transforms complex air quality data of various pollutants into a single number (index value), nomenclature and colour.
The Air Quality Index from 0 to 100 is considered as good, while from 100 to 200 it is moderate, from 200 to 300 it is poor, and from 300 to 400 it is said to be very poor and from 400 to 500 or above it is considered as severe.
Amid continuing poor air quality, the Sub-Committee for invoking actions under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) held a meeting on November 18 to review the progress of the actions implemented under Stage II along with Stage I of the GRAP in the entire NCR.
As per the dynamic model and weather/ meteorological forecast provided by IMD/ IITM, the overall air quality is likely to fluctuate largely between ‘Poor’ to the lower end of the ‘Very Poor’ categories in the next few days. The predominant surface wind is predicted to be coming from the North/ North-West direction in Delhi, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change said.
The Sub-Committee of the Commission is closely watching the situation and will review the air quality scenario accordingly.
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