A sigh of relief: Delhi air quality improves to 'poor'

New Delhi, Oct 26: Thanks to unexpected rains, delayed stubble burning and change in wind direction, the air quality in the capital during the much dreaded post-Diwali days is not as bad as was expected. On Wednesday, Delhi's air quality improved from 'very poor' to 'poor'.

The monitoring station recorded the following air quality index (AQI) at 6 am today, according to India Today:

Lodhi Road: AQI of 204, Station at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium: AQI of 257, RK Puram: AQI of 283, Anand Vihar: AQI of 342.

Notably, there is a parameter of AQI which decides the air quality: An AQI between zero and 50 is good, 51 and 100 is satisfactory, 101 and 200 is moderate, 201 and 300 is poor, 301 and 400 is very poor, and 401 and 500 is severe.

Air quality improved in the national capitals due to several factors, including the state government's decision to deploy 150 mobile anti-smog guns to sprinkle water on roads across the city. These anti-smog guns were deployed on Tuesday on Delhi's roads post-Diwali.

According to the experts, Cyclone Sitrang also helped in improving the air quality.

According to the report, this year stubble burning has had less impact on Delhi's air so far as the wind direction from Haryana and Punjab suddenly changed ahead of Diwali. The wind direction this year changed from the northwest direction to the southeast. It also helped that the pollutants from Punjab didn't come toward Delhi.

Also, since there were rains in September-end in Punjab, the stubble burning had stopped during this period and a few days later due to wet fields.