NEW DELHI: Air quality in the national capital slipped to ‘severe plus emergency’ category on Tuesday.
Although some parts of the city saw light rains in the morning, a thick haze enveloped the city throughout the day and air quality index (AQI) slipped into the emergency category by evening.
As per the Graded Action Plan formulated by the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA), if such conditions exist for more than 48 hours, then the government should think about implementing the odd-even scheme.
According to the data of System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting (SAFAR), an overall AQI of 419 was recorded in most of the areas, with the PM10 level at 500 and PM2.5 at 497, which crossed the ‘severe’ category limit.
Last time the air quality had reached this level the morning after Diwali on November 7.
Over the past week, air quality levels in Delhi and NCR have fluctuated between ‘very poor’ to ‘severe’ categories, prompting the EPCA to suggest to the authorities to allow private vehicles run only on CNG as a temporary measure to curb vehicular pollution.