Attributes improvement in air quality to dip in cases of stubble burning in neighbouring States
Witnessing improvement in Delhi’s air quality level from the “severe” category to “poor” category, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said as soon as stubble burning stopped, the air in the national capital has cleared up. Air quality in North India saw a significant improvement on Sunday after stubble burning in the states of Punjab and Haryana came to an end.
In a series of tweets by Kejriwal commented on the strong link between stubble burning in neighbouring states and the deterioration in air quality observed over the last few weeks.
“A very strong correlation can be seen between stubble burning and the spike in air pollution in North India. As soon as stubble burning began in the first week of October, the Air Quality Index (AQI) started rising. Now that burning is coming to an end, air quality is also improving,” Kejriwal said in a tweet.
He said, “Some people were saying that only five percent of Delhi’s air pollution is due to crop burning. If this were true, how did the air quality index reduced from 500 to less than 200 today? On the issue of air pollution, we cannot indulge in politics. We will have to take strong collective action.”
The national capital witnessed a dip in pollution levels on Saturday morning even as the air quality in the city remained in the “severe” category.The air quality index (AQI) in Delhi at 9 am on Sunday stood at 254 against an AQI of 412 at the same time on Saturday. The AQI in Faridabad was 228, Ghaziabad 241, Greater Noida 192, Noida 224 and Gurgaon 193.
An AQI between 201 and 300 is considered “poor”, 301-400 “very poor” and 401-500 “severe”. The national Capital recorded a minimum temperature of 16 degrees Celsius while humidity was 71 per cent.
In an affidavit to the Supreme Court, the Central Government had said that stubble burning contributes only five percent to Delhi’s pollution.
“Delhi doesn’t have the necessary tools to conduct a real time source pportionment of air pollution. But the satellite images releases by NASA confirm that as soon as stubble burning began in the first week of October, the air quality of North India deteriorated. Over the past week, stubble burning has reduced as per the same satellite images released by NASA,” said the Government official.
Posting a photo of clear blue skies of Delhi on Sunday, he tweeted, “We live in such a beautiful city. Imagine, if the stubble burning were to stop, our skies will look like this all year round and our health will also improve. We also have to work on reducing Delhi’s own pollution.”
“Until 9th October, with the air quality index between 90 and 130. Subsequently, suddenly the AQI crossed 200 from October 10 onwards. NASA’s fire map shows the red spots of stubble burning started appearing from October 10. It is clear that stubble burning is responsible for the current pollution.
Despite the Supreme Court’s order, if the neighboring states do not stop stubble burning, why should the people of Delhi suffer and for how long?,” Kejriwal added.
“We shut down the 5 lakh generators by providing 24 hours of electricity, converted industry from polluting fuel to PNG. We started Odd Even scheme to reduce vehicular pollution. Around three million vehicles hit the streets of Delhi every day, which went down to just 1.5 million vehicles during Odd Even. This helped reduce the local sources of pollution of Delhi. But the current crisis of air pollution in Delhi was due to stubble in neighboring states,” he said.
