Ghaziabad air was worst in country, Gurugram shows marginal upswing

NEWDELHI: Two days after Diwali, Ghaziabad topped as the most polluted city across the country, as per the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB’S) air quality index (AQI) that was at 446 at 4pm. It brought the city under the “severe” category.

The city was also the most polluted on Diwali day, Sunday, with an AQI of 395.

“The ‘severe’ category pollution is resultant of prevailing meteorological conditions besides local conditions like bursting of crackers, burning of waste and dust prevailing in certain areas. We are already taking strictest action against the offenders and carrying out daily drives,” said Utsav Sharma, regional officer of the UP pollution control board.

The four monitoring stations in the city recorded severe air quality on Tuesday. While Indirapuram read 439, Loni read 444, Sanjay Nagar recorded 449 and Vasundhara read 451.

The Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority [Epca] had imposed “severe” air measures under the Graded Response Action Plan on October 15 in the district.

NOIDA, G NOIDA

With local and external pollutants remaining trapped in the region and slow surface winds leaving no scope of ventilating the aerosols out, the air quality of Noida on Tuesday was “severe”.

Noida’s AQI read 439 and Greater Noida was 428 at 4pm. Noida’s Sector 62, adjacent to the under-construction Delhimeerut Expressway, was the most polluted spot across NCR with an AQI of 464 at 4pm.

GURUGRAM

The city was the least polluted in the NCR, recording an AQI of 368, marking a marginal improvement from the previous day’s AQI of 372. Experts said that pollution would likely decrease over the next couple of days, owing to strong westerly winds and also light rainfall (a consequence of the super cyclone Kyarr in the Arabian Sea.