AQI poor as air hazard hits even before Diwali

Delhi's pollution levels rocketed into the “poor” zone for the first time in four months on Tuesday, days before Diwali, as dipping temperatures and dusty winds portended the Capital's annual winter tryst with months of toxic air, prompting authorities to roll out the first stage of the Graded Response Action (Grap) to snuff out pollutants.

- Jasjeev Gandhiok

The city’s average 24-hour air quality index (AQI) hit 211 at 4pm on Tuesday, according to the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) daily bulletin. It was Delhi's first AQI reading past 200 since 245 on June 11 and a deterioration from 189 (moderate) on Monday.

For the next three months, perhaps more, Delhi's 20 million-plus residents will inhale lungfuls of toxic air with every breath. Smoke from firecrackers on Diwali, lower temperatures, slowing winds and smoke from stubble fires in upwind Punjab and Haryana will drive up pollution levels to the worst in the world. The skies will turn grey, silhouettes will blur, and administrative collapse will be on display as authorities turn to methods that have failed year after year.

Tuesday's AQI was, to be sure, down largely to local emissions and falling temperatures.

But with Diwali around the corner (and the Supreme Court indicating it may allow the use of 'green firecrackers in Delhi and the National Capital Region), stubble fires already peppering the farmlands of Punjab (the state has clocked 70 farm fires over the past week, of which 31 were on Tuesday alone) and the wind direction set to turn northwesterly, experts warned that Delhi's problem will only get more acute in the coming weeks to come.