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Pollution level touches record high, PM2.5 concentration eight times safe limit
Gururgam: Pollution levels in the city rose to a record high on Sunday, touching 486 on the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB’s) air quality index (AQI) bulletin.
Gururgam: Pollution levels in the city rose to a record high on Sunday, touching 486 on the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB’s) air quality index (AQI) bulletin. Indicating ‘severe’, this is the highest AQI value recorded by Gurugram this year, and the second time that the air quality has deteriorated to ‘severe’ levels in just three days since November 1’s reading of 469.
The average concentration of PM2.5, the city’s most prominent pollutant, was 479ug/m3 at 7pm on Sunday. This is eight times the daily safe limit of 60ug/m3, as per the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, and almost 48 times the World Health Organisation’s international safe limit of 10ug/m3.
Private data from other monitors also painted a worrisome picture. For example, one such system located in a residential complex in Sector 30 showed an average daily PM2.5 level of 687ug/m3, along with daily average PM10 concentration of 1195ug/m3. Another monitor in Sector 55 recorded PM2.5 at 680ug/m3 and PM10 at 971ug/m3. At one condominium in Sector 82, residents took it upon themselves to create ‘artificial rain’ by sprinkling treated sewage water off rooftops.
Experts and officials attributed Sunday’s sudden spike, up from 346 (‘very poor’) the previous day, to light and scattered showers that occurred across the national capital region (NCR) on Saturday night. According to an analysis by the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR), “The unexpected light drizzling last night in a calm wind condition worked highly adversely in deteriorating air quality and season’s highest level of AQI is recorded today as rapid secondary aerosol formation started in the wee hours.”
According to the experts, this indicates that suspended particulate matter pollutants, which usually remain about 1500 to 2000 metres above the surface of the earth this time of year, have descended precariously low, resting just a few metres above the ground. “This has created the intense smog-like conditions and decreased visibility majorly,” said Sachin Panwar, a city-based air quality scientist.
In a statement released Sunday evening, Ajay Mathur, director general at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), said that in addition to local sources, burning of agricultural crop residue has been largely responsible for the recent deterioration of air quality in Delhi-NCR. “Large number of fires were detected between October 26 and October 30, which are now, after the transport of pollutants through atmospheric winds, adversely affecting air quality.”
According to a SAFAR forecast, the situation may improve by Monday evening. “The AQI is expected to remain in severe category till early Monday but likely to be recovering further by late Monday to the upper end of very poor,” the forecast said.
Faridabad and Rohtak were the most polluted cities in Haryana on Sunday with AQI score of 496 and 498, respectively. Jind, at 491, also recorded a higher AQI value than Gurugram, while most other cities remained between 430 and 470. Manesar, which has one air quality monitor in Sector 2, recorded an AQI value of 486 on Sunday.
In all cities, a similar pattern can be seen, according to the CPCB data. From ‘severe’ on Friday, air quality improved to ‘very poor’ on Saturday, before worsening once again on Sunday. A senior CPCB scientist called the fluctuation “unexpected”, and said, “On Saturday, due to strong winds between 10 to 12kmph and also due to light showers, we saw PM2.5 concentrations dropping from about 400ug/m3 to 250ug/m3 in some parts of the NCR. We took this as an improvement in overall air quality. However, the real impact of inadequate rainfall manifested only on Sunday.”
Meanwhile, the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) and the district administration have doubled down on implementation of the Graded Response Action Plan (Grap) in view of the prevailing situation. “We will be implementing the orders of the EPCA, issued on November 1, all the more stringently. However, it will take a day or so before a visible change can be seen,” said Kuldeep Singh, HSPCB’s regional officer in Gurugram.
