Noida air quality ‘severe’ for third day in row

Noida: The air quality of Noida and Ghaziabad continued to be under ‘severe’ category for the third consecutive day on Sunday. However, Greater Noida’s air saw some

Noida: The air quality of Noida and Ghaziabad continued to be under ‘severe’ category for the third consecutive day on Sunday. However, Greater Noida’s air saw some improvement and turned ‘very poor’ against ‘severe’ category for the past two days.

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Weather analysts expect air quality of Noida to enter into the upper range of ‘very poor’ on Monday.

According to the air quality index (AQI) of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), on Sunday, out of 117 cities across the nation, only five cities -- Noida, Ghaziabad, Baghpat, Bulandshahr (all in UP) and Rohtak in Haryana -- remained under ‘severe’ category.

Also, Ghaziabad continued being the most polluted city of country with an AQI of 428 against 434 a day earlier, even as the Centre’s pollution monitoring agency SAFAR stated that the intrusion of smoke from stubble burning in the region was negligible on Sunday.

Though Noida’s air quality improved slightly on Sunday, it remained in the ‘severe’ zone, with the AQI value of 402 against 414 a day earlier. However, Greater Noida’s air quality improved from ‘severe’ to ‘very-poor’ with Sunday seeing an AQI of 396 (‘very-poor’) against 408 a day earlier.

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the wind speed was slightly better on Sunday and will continue being good over the next two days with the directions now changing.

“The wind speed reached 8kmph on Sunday against 4-5kmph a day earlier. The wind speed is likely to increase over the next two days and may reach 12-15kmph. The directions have changed to north-westerly by Sunday evening, but it will have better speed thus better ventilation,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, head, regional weather forecasting centre, IMD.

The fine particles or PM2.5 pollutants also remained four to five times the safe standards. PM2.5 for past 24 hours in Noida was recorded at 259.43 microgrammes per cubic metres (µg/m³) against 279.54 µg/m³ a day earlier. The PM2.5 for Greater Noida was 255.12 µg/m³ against 269.54 a day earlier, while for Ghaziabad it was 309.43 µg/m³ against 312.8 a day earlier. The safe limit for PM2.5 is 60 µg/m³.

According to SAFAR, AQI is likely to recover slightly on Monday. “Stubble fires count from SAFAR multi-satellite products is around 167 and the PM2.5 % share is negligible. Surface winds are forecasted to increase and air quality is likely to improve marginally by tomorrow but within the Very Poor category owing to slightly better ventilation condition. AQI is likely to further improve on 8th and 9th December due to better ventilation,” said the SAFAR statement on Sunday.