Air quality in seven Haryana cities continues to remain ‘very poor’

As per the bulletin of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the air quality of Haryana’s Faridabad (377), Hisar (372), Gurugram (364), Charkhi Dadri (356), Jind (348), Bahadurgarh (336) and Manesar (310) was categorised as ‘very poor’

Despite a slight improvement in the AQI, relief eludes people, especially those living in the cities under the National Capital Region (NCR), as the air in most of Haryana cities continues to be polluted.

The only positive change in the air quality in the past couple of days was that not was even a single city of Haryana was in ‘severe’ bracket on Sunday. (Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times)

As per the bulletin of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the air quality of Faridabad (377), Hisar (372), Gurugram (364), Charkhi Dadri (356), Jind (348), Bahadurgarh (336) and Manesar (310) was categorised as ‘very poor’.

AQI of 13 cities, including Rohtak (300), Dharuhera (290), Fatehabad (288), Narnaul (288), Sonepat (271), Kurukshetra (270), Panipat (270), Ballabgarh (264), Kaithal (259), Bhiwani (257), Yamunanagar (229), Ambala (225) and Palwal (224), was flashed as ‘poor’.

However, there is a positive change in the air quality in the past couple of days as on Sunday, not even a single city of the state was in ‘severe’ bracket. While Karnal’s air quality has returned to ‘moderate’, Panchkula was the only city of Haryana which had ‘satisfactory’ air quality.

As per the CPCB, AQI between 0 to 50 is considered ‘good’, 51 to 100 ‘satisfactory’, and 101 to 200 ‘moderate’, while that between 201 to 300 is classified as ‘poor’, 301 to 400 ‘very poor’ and it crosses over to the ‘severe’ zone at 401.

The incidents of stubble burning continue to impact the air quality in the state as 127 fresh farm fires were reported on Saturday, taking their total number to 6,464 this season.

As per the Haryana Space Application Centre’s data of the rice-residue burning events from September 15 to November 21, Fatehabad district is on the top with 1,399 active fire locations, followed by Kaithal (1,149), Karnal (950), Jind (826), Kurukshetra (538), Sirsa (421), Ambala (299), Yamunanagar (364), Panipat (220), Sonepat (174), Hisar (169) and Yamunanagar (145).