The Season Of Smoke Signals

Reports of the NCR’s terrible AQI (air quality index) numbers have already begun making the news.

- Anilesh S. Mahajan

The onset of winter marks several familiar events. For Indians across the country, this is the beginning of the festival season, with Dussehra and Diwali around the corner. For farmers, it marks the end of the Kharif harvest and preparations for the planting of the rabi crop. And for those in the NCR (national capital region), it has come to mark the beginning of yet another round of lamentation over air pollution, with many arguments over the relative contributions of transport, power plants, industries, and stubble burning in neighbouring states in turning Delhi into a gas chamber.

Reports of the NCR’s terrible AQI (air quality index) numbers have already begun making the news. On October 26, the CPCB’s (Central Pollution Control Board’s) AQI for Delhi was 353. Faridabad came in at 323, Ghaziabad at 365, Greater Noida at 384 and Gurugram at 258. (The index goes up to 400; lower numbers mean cleaner air.) Related stats, such as the ventilation index—how quickly pollutants are dispersed based on average wind speed—are worrying too, with CPCB officials saying the index this September and October was 1,334 sq. m per second, down from 1,850 sq. m per second in the same period last year. Numbers like these suggest that the national capital is in for yet another choking winter.