City air on the verge of ‘very poor’ zone, rain to improve AQI on Friday

Gurgaon: Air quality in the city remained in the ‘poor’ zone on Wednesday, with a reading of 299 on the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) daily air quality index (AQI) bulletin, marginally worse than the AQI of 296 recorded the previous day.

Experts attributed the lack of improvement in air quality to local factors and slow wind speeds, due to which pollutants couldn’t be dispersed.

Gurugram remained the least polluted city in the National Capital Region (NCR) for the second consecutive day, as the AQI in neighbouring Delhi, Noida and Ghaziabad worsened to the ‘severe’ category, while Faridabad was in the ‘very poor’ category.

Kuldeep Srivastava, head of India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) regional weather forecasting centre, said that since Gurugram was located to the south, local factors, such as geography and relatively better dispersion of pollutants, might have played a role in keeping the air quality marginally better than other NCR cities.

“Wind direction and location play a role due to which there might be a variation in the air quality of different cities.

When we look at Palam or Gurugram, towards the south, the dispersion is slightly higher, whereas places such as Delhi are densely populated and vehicular emissions are also higher, due to which dispersion doesn’t take place properly.

Comparatively, winds also slightly faster on the outskirts,” said Srivastava.

The level of ultrafine particulate matter having a diameter of 2.5 microns or less (PM2.5), the city’s primary pollutant, was at 243.38 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m³) on Wednesday, as per the CPCB’s air quality monitor at Vikas Sadan in Sector 11.