Return Of Delhi Smog: Life Become More Threatening Than COVID
- Shubham Goyal
- November 18, 2020
- News
During the National Lockdown, the pollution of Delhi, Capital of India, had dropped and recorded similar to 20 years past. But now as the Lockdown is released, buses, cars, motorbikes, cabs, and everything on track, Delhi is back in its older days. Delhi, this year- 2020, is yet fighting with the pandemic and this polluted atmosphere has become another problem.
New Delhi, recorded as one of the most polluted cities over the globe, this year again suffering from the ‘Smog’ which is highly harmful to the health. As the winter reaches the Capital city of India, the smog engulfed the population which is really harmful to inhale. Basically, Smog is composed of fog and smoke, and smoke consists of surfer oxides, ozone, carbon monoxides, radioactive sources, nitrogen oxides, and CFCs.
The air quality of the city dropped to the poor and it is gonna fall heavily after the Diwali celebration. The head of the India Meteorological Department’s environment research center- V K Soni said if people bust crackers pollution levels can reach ‘Severe’ to the ‘Severe plus’ category.
This time, the air quality of Delhi is measured as hazardous. Taking health into consideration, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) imposed a total ban on Monday on the sale and use of all kinds of firecrackers in the National capital Region (NCR). The strict ban is imposed from Nov 9 midnight to November 30 at midnight.
According to the Central Pollution Control Board data, the Capital city’s air quality index (AQI) stood at –
474 on Monday
416 on Sunday
427 on Saturday
406 on Friday and
450 on Thursday
Thereby, the neighboring cities like Faridabad, Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad, and Gurugram also recorded low air quality and urged to follow the rules and not to firecrackers.
Basically, an AQI between 0 to 50 is considered ‘Good’, 51 to 100 ‘Satisfactory’ 101 to 200 ‘Moderate’, 201 to 300 ‘Poor’, 301 to 400 ‘Very Poor’, 401 to 500 ‘sever’.
This Smog not only reduces the visibility to 600 meters but also can cause serious harm to health as the air is completely unhealthy to breathe. The head of the IMD said- the situation is likely to continue till 15th November as the wind speed is not expected to pick up significantly.
The central government’s Air Quality Warning System for Delhi also mentioned that “the significant improvement in air quality is not likely” owing to slow wind speed, particularly during the night time, and contribution from farm fires.
Every year the farm fire count over Punjab remains very high which directly impacts the air quality of Delhi-NCR and other Northwest regions of India, he said.
The Diwali celebration and Punjab’s farm fire are the two major factors due to which no recovery is expected soon, it said.