Delhi air quality expected to further worsen in next two days
09 Dec 2015
Air quality of Delhi is expected to further worsen in the next two days, while level of PM 2.5 is expected rise, PTI reported yesterday. The level of PM on average was 'very poor' at 200 micrograms per cubic metre yesterday, due to the influx of pollutants from the Indo-Gangetic plains.
PM 2.5 levels and PM 10, pollutants of microscopic sizes, were in the 'very poor' category in the central government's System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) stations.
However, a few CPCB stations like Anand Vihar, Mandir Marg, Punjabi Bagh and R K Puram reported 'severe' category of air quality, which had the potential to affect healthy people and "seriously impact" those with existing respiratory ailments.
"24-hour average of PM 2.5 was 200 today. Yesterday it was 189 while tomorrow it is expected to touch 210. It is due to influx of pollutants from distant sources, mostly due to the north-easterlies from the Indo-Gangetic plains, an area which stretches from Kolkata to Rajasthan," chief project scientist of SAFAR, Gufran Beig, told PTI.
According to Beig, there had been no significant change in PM 10 levels, which were much coarser than PM 2.5 and could not travel long distances, indicating that the spurt had not been caused by local factors.
Meanwhile, senior lawyer and Rajya Sabha member KTS Tulsi yesterday made it to the Parliament on a bicycle in what he said was a gesture to raise awareness about non-polluting transport as the Delhi government deliberated on measures to cut the severe air pollution.
"As long we are dependent on cars, our environment cannot be healthy. This is a life and death question. The situation is so bad that if don't wake up today then our children will certainly face the consequences," he told reporters.
Besides Tulsi, BJP lawmaker Arjun Ram Meghwal rides a bicycle to the Parliament.
On Monday, Congress parliamentarian Gaurav Gogoi wore a mask as he walked into Parliament, in a bid to call attention to the severe pollution in Delhi.
