NEW DELHI: As the Odd-Even road-rationing scheme came to an end on Friday, the toxic pollution levels across the national capital remained close to the emergency level.
With the Air Quality Index (AQI) continuing to be 462 as per the Ministry of Earth Science’s System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR), it reached the 500 mark at several places in Delhi NCR on Thursday. The air quality worsened the second time in two weeks, on 11- 12 November — the days when the scheme was called off for Guru Purab celebrations.
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This, however, does not show much variation as the air quality remained between “very poor” and “severe” on most of the days during the road-rationing scheme.On November 1, the AQI had reached the severe-plus level and the SC mandated Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) had banned construction activity and shut down schools in the city for four days.
From November 4, the road-rationing scheme kicked off as the AQI swung between “very poor and “poor” for a day and then turned very poor for next two days.
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However, a significant improvement came on November 7 with the weather also improving with an increase in the wind speed. The AQI was between “poor” and “moderate” but later, slipped to “very poor.”
Experts are of the opinion that the scheme worked in decreasing the vehicular emissions in the city, which is a local contributor to the pollution.
Seva Ram, professor of transport planning at School of Planning and Architecture, said that the scheme was contributing in a way by decreasing exposure time of heavy vehicular traffic in the city.Earlier in the day, CM Kejriwal said that the scheme is a measure to fight local sources of pollution.
“On an average, 30 lakh cars run on Delhi’s roads every day. It certainly helps if the number is reduced to half,” he said.