NEW DELHI: The waking hour in many parts of Delhi on Thursday was not greeted by sunlight, but by a thick, blinding wall of grey. Residents stepping out onto roads said visibility was sometimes no better than a few metres, turning familiar streets into blurry shapes and forcing commuters to inch their way forward with headlights cutting feebly through the smog.
This was not ordinary fog—it was toxic air that felt heavy on the lungs and coated windows with a film of particulate residue that stung the eyes.
Across the capital early Thursday, the city’s official air monitors showed the air quality index stubbornly in the very poor to severe categories. At 8 am, Anand Vihar registered around 416—firmly in the severe category—while measurements in R K Puram and Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium hovered in the mid-300s. Most readings across the city stayed between roughly 350 and 400, despite a slight dip from the previous day’s average of about 334.
For families with young children and elderly parents, the air was more than a statistic. Anxious mothers wrapped shawls over tiny faces. Some of the elderly clutched inhalers.
Doctors and nurses in hospital respiratory wards treated patients with asthma flare-ups, bronchitis, and heart complaints. Many were brought in wheezing and short of breath within minutes of stepping out of their homes.
Public transport echoed the strain. At metro stations, many commuters wore masks, a sight that brought back memories of the pandemic years. People who had no choice but to travel spoke in low, tired voices about how the smog had crept into every part of their routine.
The government, for its part, had escalated its response. Authorities invoked Stage IV of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), the strictest available set of pollution controls, which came into effect citywide on Thursday morning. Offices were told to have up to 50 per cent of employees work from home to limit travel, older vehicles were barred from entering the capital, and new rules meant petrol pumps would refuse fuel to any vehicle without a valid pollution-under-control (PUC) certificate.
Barricades came up at the Delhi–Uttar Pradesh and Delhi–Gurugram borders, where police teams stopped vehicles one by one to check whether they met BS VI emission norms. Drivers found violating the rules were either fined `20,000 or asked to turn back.
Construction sites across the city were quieted, and trucks laden with building materials were stopped at city limits, part of the strategy to curb dust pollution. By midday, the smog still clung to the horizon. By dusk, a wintry chill became the additional element. As night fell, Delhi’s winter of foggy distress faced one more day, even as the strongest government curbs could not lift a city’s breath from the smog.