The air quality in Delhi is currently in the Severe Plus category, the worst this season. The toxic smog that has been blanketing the NCR for days has increased again on Sunday, November 17.
The Air Quality Management Commission has taken several emergency measures, including online learning for most students, while classes like grades 10 and 12 will continue, of course, with strict health protocols.
The order to stop face-to-face classes and implement work-from-home arrangements must be followed until further notice. CM Atishi wrote an announcement in his social media post.
“Physical classes will be stopped for all students, except grades 10&12. All schools will conduct online classes until further orders,” CM Atishi wrote.
The average Air Quality Index in Delhi deteriorated to 441 on Sunday at 4 pm, far from the severe zone compared to the previous day when it was at 441.
However, at 6 pm, the air quality level in Delhi increased to over 450 and was in the severe plus category.This prompted the Air Quality Management Commission to implement the fourth phase.
Delhi will impose GRAP-4 when airborne toxins reach ‘emergency’ levels with AQI exceeding 450 on a scale of 500. The preventive measure will focus on restricting vehicles to reduce pollution.
Several vehicles have been banned from entering Delhi, such as non-emergency trucks, light commercial vehicles (LCV) that are not BS 6 compliant and not registered in Delhi. Likewise, medium and heavy goods vehicles powered by BS-4 diesel are also banned from entering Delhi.
Meanwhile, there was an exemption for construction and demolition (C&D) activities in linear public projects such as highways, roads, flyovers, power transmission lines and pipelines, which has now been removed.
Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director for Research and Advocacy at the Centre for Science and Environment or CSE, said that this situation is due to the combined impact of a deepening winter inversion and trapping of high local and regional pollution.
Anumita Roychowdhury also said that urgent action is needed now to slow down further buildup of pollution from the major sources of pollution.
One of the causes of pollution is the contribution of stubble burning to Delhi’s PM2.5 which reached 25.5% on the Support System.
Meanwhile, the lowest visibility occurred on Sunday reaching 500 meters in Palam which occurred between 8.30 am and 9 am. While in Safdarjung the visibility dropped to 300 meters at 7 am.
A few hours later at both locations there was a decrease in visibility in Palam reaching 900 m at 5.30 pm and dropping drastically to 150 m at 11 pm, in Safdarjung at 2.30 pm the visibility reached 800 meters.
As a result of this incident, the maximum temperature in Delhi dropped to 27.2 degrees Celsius, down one degree below normal. While the minimum temperature was at 15.9 degrees Celsius which was four levels above normal.