'Poor' no more: 'Moderate' Delhi air to improve further with strong winds

New Delhi, Nov 16: Delhi air's 'severe' and 'very poor' days seems to be finally over. The capital recorded significant improvement in its air quality on Wednesday morning and is now in 'moderate' category with overall Air Quality Index (AQI) at 176.

The improvement came a day after the air quality was 'poor' with overall AQI at 221 on Tuesday.

An AQI between 0-50 is considered good, 51-100 satisfactory, 101-200 moderate, 201-300 poor, 301-400 very poor and 401-500 severe.

According to reports, the improvement in Delhi's air was also due to the result of lesser incidents of stubble burning in Punjab. Only 141 stubble burning incident reportedly took place on Tuesday. Punjab also reported decline in farm fires.

Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) data also stated that Punjab reported decline in farm fires as there were 141 farm fires reported on Tuesday, while four were reported on Monday which is an immense drop from 2,467 incidents which took place on Saturday.

"The share of farm fires in Delhi's PM 2.5 pollution dropped to 3 per cent on Tuesday from 13 per cent on Monday," according to SAFAR.

Moreover, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said that the air quality of Delhi expected to be better due to strong winds.

Following the improvement in Delhi's air quality, the administration on Monday annulled the curbs enforced in Delhi-NCR under stage three of the Graded Response Action Plan with immediate effect.

Under the curbs, construction and demolition activities, barring essential projects were banned.