City air likely to turn ‘very poor’ on weekend

Gurgaon: After staying in the ‘moderate’ range for three consecutive days, the air quality turned ‘poor’ in the city on Thursday. The air quality index (AQI) was recorded at 228 as compared to 155 on Wednesday.
According to the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB), the air quality is likely to deteriorate to ‘very poor’ category on Saturday as meteorological conditions are likely to become highly unfavourable for dispersion of pollutants during the weekend because of low wind speed.
Three of the city’s four monitoring stations — Sector 51 (237), Teri Gram (263) and Vikas Sadan (179) — reported ‘poor’ and ‘moderate’ AQI on Thursday, while Gwalpahari’s AQI couldn’t be recorded due to insufficient data.
“The local pollutants are getting trapped in the atmosphere in Gurgaon. AQI will worsen because of a dip in minimum temperature and change in wind speed, making the dispersion process slow,” said Shubhansh Tiwari, a research associate at Amity Centre for Air Pollution Control.
Guidelines issued by the Central Pollution Control Board stated that when the AQI is in ‘moderate’ zone, there can be breathing discomfort to the people with asthma and lung or heart disease. In ‘poor’ AQI, breathing discomfort can be felt by most people on prolonged exposure.
According to the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), AQI is likely to deteriorate for the next three days as minimum as well as maximum temperatures are likely to drop along with low wind speed resulting in weak dispersion and accumulation of pollutants. Calm winds are expected for next one week that are likely to deteriorate air quality.
The AQI of neighbouring Faridabad was however ‘moderate’ at 191 on Thursday. It was ‘moderate’ in Delhi (189), Noida (137) and Ghaziabad (150) as well.