Delhi ticked off the ‘10 most polluted cities of Asia’ list, Kejriwal reacts

Delhi's air quality on Monday inched towards the "very poor" category with the air quality index (AQI) at 298 at 6 am.

Delhi has been ticked off the top 10 most polluted cities of Asia list even as the national capital almost entered the ‘very poor’ category on Diwali morning and is expected to worsen even further. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal lauded the people of Delhi and said that “while we have improved, there is still a long way to go”.

Delhi ticked off the ‘10 most polluted cities of Asia’ list (ANI Photo)

“Some years back, Delhi was the most polluted city in the world. Not any more! People of Del worked v hard. Today, we hv improved a lot. Whereas we hv improved, its still a long way. We will continue working hard so that we find a place in the best cities of the world (sic),” he wrote on Twitter.

Delhi's air quality on Monday inched towards the "very poor" category with the air quality index (AQI) at 298 at 6 am. According to data, 19 out of the 35 monitoring stations in the city recorded air quality in the "very poor" category - while one station at Anand Vihar reported "severe" pollution levels, reported news agency ANI. Ghaziabad's AQI stood at 300, Noida's at 299, Greater Noida at 282, Gurugram at 249, and Faridabad at 248.

However, on the other hand, eight Indian cities have been featured in the list released by World Air Quality Index - with Gurugram in Haryana topping the list with an AQI of 679 - followed by Dharuhera town near Rewari with an AQI of 543 and Muzaffarpur in Bihar with an AQI of 316.

Other Indian cities featured on the list are Lucknow (AQI 298) in Uttar Pradesh,, Begusarai in Bihar (AQI 269), Bhopal, Dewas (AQI 266), among others.

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

The World Air Quality Index aims to raise public awareness about air pollution and provide people with unified data on global air quality. China's Xiaoshishang Port in Luzhou and Bayankhoshuu in Mongolia have also been featured in the list.