Delhi Traffic Police has come up with an idea of hourly updating air quality index, category of quality ~ good, poor and very poor ~ along with an advisory for public on its Twitter handle.
A Central Pollution Control Board officer told The Statesman that ” the Capital is facing severe complication but no authority is serious to tackle it by preparing an action plan. The idea to update AIQ was shared with Delhi Traffic Police and fortunately they agreed. The motive behind it is to regularly remind people about the status of AIQ in the Capital. Eventually, we hope someone will take concrete action or force the government to prepare an action plan.”
The air quality in Indian has been categorised into six types: AIQ between 0-50 is good, 51-100 is satisfactory, 101-200 moderately polluted, 201-300 polluted, 301-400 very polluted and 401-500 severe.
The Delhi Police initiative started on 12 January after it began procuring hourly data from CPCB and shared it on variable messaging systems and also updatingas well as social media through its Twitter handle.
Joint commissioner of Traffic Police Garima Bhatnagar told The Statesman: “The initiative was started after CPCB urged Delhi Police to assist them in conveying details of air quality and other aspects of pollution to public. It received positive response from public and we have received positive acknowledgement from Twitter users.”
Since 12 January the AIQ in capital has been poor and at times it tended towards being very poor and severe. On 12 January the worst AIQ given by CPCB was 325 at 11 p.m. in the capital while 313 was the average AIQ for the day. The condition worsened on the next day when 371 was the max AIQ recorded at 3 p.m. i.e. very poor and least was 328 at 12 midnight. Data showed that AIQ on 13 January fluctuated in the very poor category the entire day.