E-Paper
‘Severe’ air quality in three UP cities
Greater Noida had the highest AQI of 425 in UP, followed by Ghaziabad (411), and Noida (406) compared to Delhi with the highest AQI - 447 - in India
LUCKNOW Three cities in UP recorded ‘severe’ air quality with the air quality index (AQI) crossing the 400-mark while two cities registered ‘very poor’ and eight cities ‘poor’ air quality, according to the bulletin released by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) on Friday.
Greater Noida had the highest AQI of 425 in UP, followed by Ghaziabad (411), and Noida (406) compared to Delhi with the highest AQI in India - 447. Only two cities in UP had ‘very poor’ AQI – Kanpur at 358 and Muzaffarnagar at 342. Eight cities recorded ‘poor’ AQI against only half the figure (only 4 cities) on Thursday. These included Meerut (299), Lucknow (290), Hapur (279), Baghpat (272), Firozabad (243), Vrindavan (227), Bulandshahr (215), and Prayagraj (204).
After a single day of moderate AQI on Wednesday, the state capital’s air quality remained ‘poor’ for two consecutive days. On Friday, the AQI jumped to 290 from 215 on Thursday.
In Lucknow, the pollution control board has installed five monitoring stations. According to that, the Central school area remained the most polluted with AQI reaching 500 at 2am on Friday. In Talkatora industrial area, the AQI reached 464 at 10pm on Thursday and 423 at 2am on Friday.
Lalbagh area registered an AQI of 417. The AQI was equally bad at Gomti Nagar, only recording moderate at Kukrail Picnic spot.
For the unversed, an AQI level between zero and 50 is considered “good”, 51-100 is “satisfactory”, 101-200 is “moderate”, 201-300 is “poor”, 301-400 is “very poor”, and 401-500 is “severe”.
