Lucknow air takes ‘poor’ turn; Lalbagh, Aliganj most polluted

Gomti Nagar recorded a ‘poor’ AQI of 262 ; Talkatora industrial area also in ‘poor’ category with AQI 255 and PM2.5 value reaching maximum 324 during night hours

LUCKNOW Lucknow remained shrouded in a thick layer of smog on Tuesday morning with all five live stations set up to measure the air quality index (AQI) recording a ‘poor’ reading. Lalbagh and Aliganj were the most polluted areas in the city with average AQIs of 352 (very poor) and 314 (very poor), respectively.

A man covers his face with a mask amid air pollution in the state capital on Tuesday. (Deepak Gupta/HT Photo)

The particulate matter (PM2.5) value at some stations went into ‘severe’ category with similar numbers being recorded at Delhi’s live stations. At Lalbagh, the PM 2.5 value reached 386 during night time while PM 10 was 416 and remained in the ‘red zone’ from night to morning.

The data was fetched from six live monitoring stations at Talkatora, Lalbagh, Kendriya Vidyalay, Gomti Nagar, Kukrail, and BR Ambedkar University set up jointly by Central and State Pollution Control Boards to monitor pollution.

For the unversed, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) classifies AQI between 0-50 as “good”, between 51 and 100 as “satisfactory”, between 101 and 200 as “moderate”, between 201 and 300 as “poor”, between 301 and 400 as “very poor”, and over 400 as “severe”.

The other stations in Lucknow were not behind, as Gomti Nagar recorded a ‘poor’ AQI of 262 and PM 2.5 value reached a maximum of 386. The Talkatora industrial area was also in ‘poor’ category with AQI 255 and PM2.5 value reaching maximum 324 during night hours.

Interestingly, Kukrail, which is a green zone and comes under forest area, recorded an AQI of 217 with PM2.5 value reaching 302 in the morning. Likewise, BBAU station, which too was in moderate category till Monday, turned ‘poor’ with AQI reaching 227 and PM2.5 value reaching maximum of 352 at night.

3 U.P. cities in ‘severe’ category

Three U.P. cities were in ‘severe’ category of air pollution, very close to the AQI (460) of Delhi, as per the daily bulletin released by the CPCB. Cities that recorded severe pollution were Ghaziabad 434, Bulandshahr 416 and Hapur 419.

POLLUTION CHART (AQI)

SEVERE

Ghaziabad 434

Bulandshahr 416

Hapur 419

VERY POOR

Baghpat 375

Greater Noida 372

Noida 370

Meerut 350

POOR

Muzaffarnagar 284

Lucknow 269

Firozabad 268

Kanpur 237

Agra 228