Delhi's AQI to dip further to 'very poor' category due to stubble burning, says SAFAR

Delhi’s air quality deteriorated from the 'moderate' to 'poor' category on Thursday and according to the latest projections, the air quality is likely to slip to the 'very poor' category by Friday. In a forecast report, the Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR) said, “As predicted by SAFAR, the AQI is now forecasted to deteriorate rapidly and slip to the very poor category by tomorrow and deteriorate further to the higher end of very poor category by 29 th October." As per the data released by the Central Pollution Control Board, Delhi's air quality index (AQI) was at 232 at 4 pm on Wednesday, October 27. The data reflects the average AQI of the 37 monitoring stations installed across the city.

According to SAFAR, stubble burning from neighbouring states is one of the main reasons behind the deteriorating condition of air quality in the national capital. SAFAR said in a release, "Effective fire count of stubble burning in the northwest region of Delhi is 656 and its share in PM2.5 is 16% as transport-level winds are northwesterly." It further added, "Calm local winds combined with highly favourable transport-level winds (North-north westerly) at 900-950 mb height enhance stubble burning related intrusion. Any increase in fire counts in the next 3 days would increase finer particle levels of Delhi." Despite repeated calls by the Arvind Kejriwal government asking both the centre and the adjacent state governments, there has been no reaction and the stubble burning will be carried out as it was in the previous years.

Delhi's AQI to worsen as the temperature drops

According to the government agencies, an AQI within the range of 0-5 is regarded as 'good', 51-100 is 'satisfactory', 101-200 is 'moderate', 201-300 is 'poor' and 301-400 is 'very poor' and 401-500 is considered 'severe'. The increase in smog will be coupled with a drop in temperature as the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said that the minimum temperature in Delhi on Thursday will be 14 degrees Celsius while the maximum temperature is forecasted to reach 29 degrees Celsius. On Wednesday, the maximum temperature was 28.2 degrees Celsius which was three degrees below normal and the minimum temperature was 14.6 degrees Celsius.

With ANI inputs