Delhi-NCR News: The much-awaited Delhi winter is slowly setting in but with it the pollution menace is also making a return to the national capital like every year, making life difficult for the residents. As of Thursday, the air quality in the Delhi-NCR region remained poor for the fourth straight day even as the city government ordered the implementation of pollution mitigation measures and anti-smog guns have been deployed to tackle the crisis.
On Thursday, the overall Air Quality Index (AQI) in Delhi stood at 256, in the 'Poor' category as per SAFAR-India and Noida recorded an AQI of 256 -- also in the 'Poor' category.
Visuals showed an anti-smog gun sprinkling water in Anand Vihar.
A resident, Bhagwati Prasad expressed disappointment with the recurring situation and said, "The pollution situation is very poor. There is coughing and burning in the throat for the last few days. There seems to be no solution as it happens every year... There is a lot of traffic."
Delhi's Dussehra Air Quality At 3-Year Low
According to an analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), Delhi recorded the worst air quality in three years on this Dussehra, primarily owing to the late arrival of the festival at October end.
The analysis revealed that the average PM2.5 concentration in Delhi on Dussehra, which was celebrated on Tuesday, stood at 101 micrograms per cubic metre, compared to 89 micrograms per cubic metre in 2022 and 93 micrograms per cubic metre in 2021, news agency PTI reported.
Dussehra was celebrated on October 5 2022 and on October 15 2021. Several incidents of firecracker burning were also reported in parts of Delhi on Tuesday, which aggravated the pollution menace.
In keeping with the practice of the last three years, Delhi had last month announced a comprehensive ban on the manufacture, storage, sale, and use of firecrackers within the city.