Ghaziabad: City continues reeling in ‘very poor’ post-Diwali pollution
The daily AQI bulletin of the CPCB stated that Ghaziabad stood in the list of eight most polluted cities on Saturday with AQI of 330, higher than that of Delhi with 316.
Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad city continued to reel under “very poor” category of pollution for the second consecutive day post-Diwali with the particulate matter (PM2.5) levels emerging as primary pollutant. Officials said the high levels of PM2.5 is the result of vehicular pollution and burning of crackers.
The daily AQI bulletin of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) stated that Ghaziabad stood in the list of eight most polluted cities on Saturday with AQI of 330, higher than that of Delhi with 316. This AQI stood at 306 on November 1(Friday).
To be sure, the 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”, 401 and 450 “severe” and above 450 “severe plus”.
A close look of central pollution control board’s (CPCB) figures revealed that monitoring stations at Loni (377) and Sanjay Nagar (345) contributed majority of the polluted conditions to the city’s overall AQI on Saturday. The city has two other monitoring stations at Indirapuram (AQI 308) and Vasundhara (AQI 290).
A detailed review of CPCB data also revealed that night time pollution levels almost reached an AQI of 500 at all four monitoring stations between 9pm Friday to 4am on Saturday.
Officials said that bursting of crackers post-Diwali continued on Friday night and it was also one of the major contributing factors to city’s pollution levels.
“We cannot say anything specific about Loni whereas Sanjay Nagar is a residential area. The stubble burning effect and other local pollutants could have aided to higher AQI ranges. The wind speed has also declined and temperature is slowly going down. So, we expect that pollution levels may rise in coming days and dispersal of pollutants will not be fast,” said Vikas Mishra, regional officer of UP pollution control board, Ghaziabad.
On the other hand, the AQI of two nearby cities of Greater Noida and Noida continued under the “poor” category with figures of 250 and 269, respectively.
The UPPCB officials said that more vehicles on road during the festival time, bursting of crackers and stubble burning effect from nearby states had contributed to polluted conditions in the region.
According to figures of the system for air quality management in Delhi, the contribution of stubble burning to the PM2.5 levels concentration in Delhi was about 35.175%.
“The wind speed has almost slowed down and we expect that dispersal of pollutants will be lesser in coming days. The crackers burning in Noida on Friday was negligible while there are some bad roads which have contributed to PM10 levels. The stubble burning effect is also aided pollution levels here,” said Utsav Sharma, regional officer of UPPCB, Noida.
The early warning air quality system for Delhi on Saturday predicted, “Meteorological conditions are likely to be extremely unfavourable for dispersion of pollutants” with wind speed less than 10kmph over Delhi during October 2 to October 5.
“The AQI is likely to deteriorate as winter has started to set in and meteorological conditions becoming unfavourable. The majority of pollutants, accumulated due to bursting of crackers, were driven away post-Diwali due to higher wind speed. In coming days, the effect of local pollutants and impact coming in from stubble burning will impact the AQI. So, the concerned departments need to gear up,” said Vikrant Sharma, a city-based environmentalist and lawyer.