Dip in Delhi air quality triggers action meet

NEW DELHI: That all familiar ‘winter’ feeling may soon be returning to the capital with Delhi’s air quality deteriorating to ‘poor’ on the Central Pollution Control Board’s air quality index on Saturday, with a reading of 219 – just days after it was recorded as ‘satisfactory’ and even touched ‘good’ briefly, falling below an AQI reading of 50.
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The sudden deterioration in air quality over the last few days has primarily been due to local conditions according to experts, with Delhi witnessing a ‘transition’ phase where the monsoon retreats and the wind speeds drop – resulting in PM 10 levels shooting up to almost 2.5 times on Saturday.

D Saha, former head of CPCB’s air laboratory said the change is a common occurrence around this time of the year, however things will start improving once wind speeds increase. According to CPCB’s central control room data, the average PM 10 levels at 6pm on Saturday to be 254 micrograms per cubic metre – almost 2.5 times the safe standard of 100 micrograms per cubic metre.

Meanwhile, with the pollution levels spiking over the last 48 hours, the Supreme Court-mandated Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) is all set to meet on Friday to work on implementing the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) which will kick start on October 15.

EPCA officials said the meeting will look at localised sources of pollution, with hotspots in Delhi like Anand Vihar and Mundka currently being analysed due to their ‘high’ readings.

“There is no evidence to suggest at the moment that crop burning is the reason for this problem. Wind speeds in Delhi and NCR have fallen to almost zero and locations on the outskirts of NCR like Gurgaon or Rewari are all in the ‘very poor’ range almost. In Delhi, locations like Mundka and Anand Vihar are also in the orange category, which is mainly due to localised pollution and we want to identify that and start action on it,” said Sunita Narain, member of EPCA and director general at Centre for Science and Environment.

Meanwhile action on polluting industries in Delhi is likely to start soon with the Delhi Pollution Control Committee’s deadline for industries to shift to ‘approved’ fuels to end on September 30. DPCC, in its notification on June 29, had issued a list of fuels that could be used in Delhi, which included LPG, CNG, PNG, Diesel, Petrol and aviation turbine fuel among others.