Delhi Pollution: The air quality in the national capital showed slight improvement but continued to remain in the "poor" category on Saturday morning, a day ahead of Diwali. According to SAFAR, Delhi's overall AQI stood at 201.
In Anand Vihar, the AQI was recorded at 296, while it was 239 at RK Puram. Punjabi Bagh registered an AQI of 253, and in ITO, it was at 270 on Saturday morning, as per the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data at 8 AM. According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Delhi is not likely to receive any rain today and the sky is expected to remain partly cloudy with shallow fog in the morning.
The improvement in the air quality is attributable to intermittent rain over the last 30-32 hours and wind speed favourable for the dispersion of pollutants. The city was experiencing "very poor" to "severe" air quality for two weeks.
Neghbouring states also showed significant improvement in air quality. In Gurugram, the AQI was recorded at 181, in Ghaziabad it stood at 157. As far as Greater Noida is concerned, the AQI was at 131, in Noida 148 and Faridabad 174, as reported by the news agency PTI. An AQI between zero and 50 is considered "good", 51 and 100 "satisfactory", 101 and 200 "moderate", 201 and 300 "poor", 301 and 400 "very poor", 401 and 450 "severe" and above 450 "severe plus".
On Friday, the Delhi government postponed the implementation of the odd-even car rationing scheme after intermittent rains brought relief to the residents from hazardous air lingering over the national capital, as reported by PTI.
The Supreme Court on Friday heard a matter on the worsening air quality in Delhi-NCR. During the proceedings, the top court clarified that the decision on introducing the odd-even car rationing scheme had to be taken by the city government and pulled it up for shifting the burden onto the court.