After Diwali, AQI very poor in Lucknow, poor across U.P.

In the state capital, the AQI of Lucknow city increased a few points on Diwali day but turned ‘very poor’ on Friday, a day after Diwali, recorded at 306, a jump of 124 points

Air pollution across Uttar Pradesh rocketed following Diwali with most cities registering a spike in the Air Quality Index (AQI).

Pollution seen in Lucknow on Saturday. (Mushtaq Ali/HT)

In the state capital, the AQI of Lucknow city increased a few points on Diwali day but turned ‘very poor’ on Friday, a day after Diwali, recorded at 306, a jump of 124 points.

On Saturday, Lucknow’s AQI remained ‘poor’ at 245, while on Wednesday, a day before Diwali, the AQI in Lucknow was recorded at 175 Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) data showed.

Likewise, similar trends were also reported in cities including Kanpur where the AQI jumped to 289 on Friday from 131 on Diwali. On Saturday, Kanpur AQI remained ‘poor’ at 206. In Meerut, it jumped to 294 from 202. In Ghaziabad, it moved to 306 on Friday from 273. On Saturday, AQI at Ghaziabad was ‘very poor’ at 330. Greater Noida at 258 was poor on Friday, Noida, Muzaffarnagar, Agra and other Western UP cities reflected a similar trend. Gorakhpur was poor at 274 on Friday

According to experts, the marked change in AQI after Diwali is primarily caused by increased human activities during the festive season.

The six live monitoring stations - Talkatora, Lalbagh, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Gomti Nagar, Kukrail, and BR Ambedkar University - set up in Lucknow, recorded extreme air pollution on Diwali night especially between 10 pm to 2 am.

At most stations, PM2.5 and PM10 values reached a maximum of 424 limits or very close to it under the ‘severe’ category between these hours with the live stations graph turning dark red.

AQI is categorised as follows -- 0-50 (good), 51-100 (satisfactory), 101-200 (moderate), 201-300 (poor), 301-400 (very poor), and 401-500 (severe).

At Talkatora and Kendriya Vidyalaya stations, both the PM2.5 and PM10 values that calculate the AQI reached a maximum of 424 each between 10 pm and 4 am. The green area of the city, Kukrail too did not remain far from the crackers pollution as the PM2.5 and PM10 values reached a maximum of 282. At Gomti Nagar, the highest PM2.5 value was recorded at 372 around 12 midnight. While at BR Ambedkar station, the graphs started turning from yellow (moderate) to orange (poor).