The air quality in Delhi worsened to the “poor” level on Wednesday.
The Commission for Air Quality Management enforced Stage 1 restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan in Delhi and the National Capital Region after the average Air Quality Index crossed 200.
As of 4 pm, the national capital recorded an average Air Quality Index of 244, showed the Sameer application that provides hourly updates published by the Central Pollution Control Board.
Forty-three of the 55 active monitoring stations recorded “poor” or worse air quality levels. At 328, the AQI in Pusa was the worst in Delhi.
This was the highest AQI in the national capital since mid-July.
In Uttar Pradesh, Ghaziabad recorded a “poor” AQI of 222, Greater Noida 248 and Noida 203, the application showed.
In Haryana, Gurugram recorded an average AQI of 204. Faridabad recorded an air quality level of 124, which is in the “moderate” category.
GRAP is a set of incremental anti-pollution measures that are triggered to prevent further worsening of air quality once it reaches a certain threshold in the Delhi-NCR region.
The first stage involves measures such as mechanical sweeping of roads and sprinkling water on them to keep dust from rising. It also bans some kinds of construction and demolition activities.
Under this stage, vehicles without a valid Pollution…
