BHUBANESWAR: Capital city Bhubaneswar was engulfed by a thick blanket of smog as the firecracker bursts during Diwali celebrations on Sunday night pushed the air quality index (AQI) to the severe category of 510.
The air quality data released by the Odisha State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) for the pre-Diwali (November 1) to Diwali (November 8) period revealed that concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) surged severalfold across monitoring stations in the capital city.
A thick layer of smoke enveloped the city skyline during Diwali celebrations. Such was the condition that many localities like Nayapalli, Rasulgarh, Saheed Nagar, Baramunda and Patia witnessed drastically reduced visibility.
OSPCB officials said the 24-hour average PM2.5 level across the city’s monitoring network rose from 29 µg/m³ before the festival to 393 µg/m³ on Diwali day, which was more than six times the national 24-hour standard of 60 µg/m³. The sharp rise pushed the city’s overall Air Quality Index (AQI) into the ‘severe’ category (510), driven primarily by PM2.5.
Individual stations recorded extreme spikes. Office building in Unit-VIII saw levels jump from 31 µg/m³ to 589 µg/m³ (highest), Capital police station from 37 µg/m³ to 542 µg/m³, IRC Village in Nayapalli from 27 µg/m³ to 488 µg/m³, Khandagiri police station from 39 µg/m³ to 490 µg/m³, and Palasuni Water Works from 29 µg/m³ to 428 µg/m³.
The PM2.5 levels in others stations like Lingaraj Temple rose from 14.6 µg/m³ to 278.5 µg/m³, Chandrasekharpur from 51 µg/m³ to 211 µg/m³, while LV Prasad Eye Hospital recorded a comparatively lower but still elevated rise from 5 µg/m³ to 117.6 µg/m³.
At most locations, the jump was accompanied by equally high PM10 readings, resulting in AQI values classified as severe or very poor. Only the LV Prasad Eye Hospital station remained in the ‘poor’ category (AQI 292).
According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), AQI values (PM2.5) above 400 fall in the severe range. The data, compiled from six manual stations and two continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations (CAAQMS), showed that gaseous pollutants such as SO2, NO2, NH3 and Ozone (O3) also rose but remained well below their respective standards in most cases.
Noise pollution in the state capital too breached the limit of Leq dB(A) at multiple locations. The noise monitoring data of OSPCB showed that Leq dB(A) of Saheed Nagar was the highest at 79.1 (6 pm to 10 pm), followed by Nayapalli 78.7, Mancheswar Industrial Estate 77.2 and Unit-VI 72, which is close to Capital Hospital and comes under silence zone, against the standard Leq dB(A) of 55, 45, 70 and 40 respectively for these localities.
Officials said prolonged exposure to such high levels of air pollution can lead to long-term respiratory complications. “Although the authorities had set a timeline of two hours (7 pm to 9 pm), for bursting firecrackers, people continued celebrating till midnight in violation of the guideline,” they added.