AMN
DESPITE supreme court ban on sale of firecrackers, Delhi’s air quality took a sharp plunge and entered the ‘severe’ zone today with bursting of firecrackers on the night of Diwali festival.
According to SAFAR-the System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research, the pollution indicator turned a deep shade of brown, indicating ‘severe’ air quality in the national capital.
This kind of air pollution may affect healthy people and seriously impact those with existing respiratory or cardiovascular diseases.
The 24-hour rolling average of ultrafine particulates PM2.5 were 424 and PM10, 571 micrograms per cubic metre.
The average safe standards of PM2.5 and PM10 are 60 and 100 respectively and anything beyond that can harm living beings as these pollutants measure up to 30 times tinier than the width of a human hair.
But unlike previous years, the run-up to Diwali festivities was much cleaner this time as the Supreme Court had temporarily banned the sale of firecrackers till 31st of this month in the NCR.
Even the Diwali evening was relatively quiet and promising, suggesting that the ban on sale of firecrackers in the Delhi-NCR region imposed by the apex court has worked.
The Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Prevention and Control Authority (EPCA), which is empowered to enforce the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) to combat air pollution in Delhi-NCR, kicked off a series of preventive measures for Tuesday.
Measures under the GRAP’s ‘very poor’ and ‘severe’ categories, which include a ban on diesel generator sets, have come into effect and will remain in force till 15th of March next year.