Air quality better but likely to deteriorate next week

New Delhi: Air quality in the capital region improved to ‘satisfactory’ levels on Friday and is forecast to remain so over the weekend after staying in the ‘very poor’ to ‘severe’ categories for 10 days, pollution-monitoring agencies said.

Conditions are likely to be unfavourable again from Monday, when surface winds are forecast to decrease. This may raise the pollution levels to the ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ category again.

Pollution levels moderated because of favourable weather conditions and negligible fumes from fires in the fields of Punjab and Haryana as farmers have almost finished burning residue from the previous crop.


“High ventilation due to fast winds and rainfall in the surrounding regions helped clean the accumulated pollutants. Ventilation conditions are quite favourable for the dispersion of pollutants,” said the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), the nodal agency of the government that tracks and forecasts air pollution.

The average AQI in New Delhi was 137 over the past 24 hours, a sharp drop from 302 a day before. The PM 2.5 level stood at 54 on Friday afternoon, a season-low.

An AQI between 0 and 50 is considered good, 51 and 100 satisfactory, 101 and 200 moderate, 201 and 300 poor, 301 and 400 very poor, and above 401 is severe.

Stubble burning counts from neighbouring Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh stayed consistently below 200 over the past week, a massive decline from the season-high count of almost 4,200 on November 4. The stubble burning process involves farmers setting their harvest residue ablaze to prepare the ground for the next crop.

Before Thursday, Delhi last saw ‘moderate’ air quality the day after Diwali due to a short burst of showers brought on by a western disturbance.