CHANDIGARH: Amid hazardous air quality and heavy smog, VVIPs are also affected. With 7,112 stubble-burning cases reported, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann couldn't fly from Chandigarh to Bathinda on Wednesday due to "poor visibility" and had to travel by road. Similarly, Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar couldn't land in Ludhiana on Tuesday for the same reason.
Sources said that Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had to go to Gidderbaha to address an election rally from Chandigarh, after attending a function of Vision Punjab 2047 at the Panjab University but the Air Traffic Control (ATC) did not permit his helicopter to take off due to `Poor Visibility’ as there was too much of smog so the visibility was almost nil thus Mann had to go by road.
While Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar was unable to attend two events in Ludhiana as his aircraft could not land due to poor visibility at the Halwara airbase on Tuesday.
Dhankhar was set to attend two functions, one at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) and the other at Sat Paul Mittal School in Dugri including an international conference on climate change. The plane of Dhankhar was diverted to Amritsar International Airport, immediately Amritsar Deputy Commissioner Sakshi Sawhney and Amritsar Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar rushed to the airport to receive the Vice President.
After landing at Amritsar the plane got refueled and then took off to Indore in Madhya Pradesh. While addressing the gathering at PAU Punjab governor Gulab Chand Kataria had said Dhankhar’s plane was diverted to Amritsar but there too the situation wasn’t better, forcing him to return.
Flights between Delhi and Amritsar on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings were delayed by over two hours due to very low visibility amid hazardous AQI in both cities. Recently a SpiceJet flight scheduled to depart at 8:40 am from Amritsar to Dubai was diverted to Delhi due to poor visibility.
Low visibility due to smog has also caused inconvenience to commuters with the visibility declining. The air quality index (AQI) of Punjab, which was already `poor’ has stayed that way with the bursting of crackers and more farm fires in the past ten days across the state.