Delhi: Pollution peaks as norms go up in smoke

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[google-translator]

At midnight on Thursday — after nearly five hours of cracker burning by people across the city to mark Diwali — the hourly concentration of PM 2.5 (one of the minutest and dangerous pollutants) hit 1,984 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m3) in south-east Delhi’s Okhla-Phase-2, 33 times the national ambient air quality standards and nearly 397 times the WHO safe-limit.

In north Delhi’s Ashok Vihar, the hourly average of the micro particle touched 1,957µg/m3 at 3am.

These two were among the most polluted localities in Delhi on Diwali this year, data from the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) showed. Rampant cracker bursting, slow winds, high moisture content and a high contribution of pollutants from farm fires pushed Delhi’s air quality into severe zone for the first time this year since January, and the worst after Diwali since air quality records are being maintained.

The 24-hour average air quality on Diwali (Thursday) at 4pm was 382. The same was recorded at 462 on Friday.

Locations such as Najafgarh recorded the average PM2.5 levels at 528µg/m3, in Narela it was 654µg/m3, Bawana showed a reading of 705µg/m3, and the residential area around Aurobindo Marg recorded 791µg/m3.

Other locations that showed high PM2.5 pollution include Wazirpur (1,843 µg/m3), an industrial area fairly close to Ashok Vihar, and Anand Vihar (1,714 µg/m3).

 

Of the 37 air quality monitoring stations across the city, 36 showed air quality in the severe zone on Friday at 4pm. Only the station at DTU, north Delhi, recorded AQI of 384 in the very poor zone.

Experts said though several factors could be responsible for varying concentration of particulate pollutants across areas, it is mostly indicative of cracker burning.

“We have to see the area and the wind-speed and if the area is upwind or down-wind for smoke coming from stubble burning, but largely, these spikes are indicative of firecrackers, in addition to any other local emission source… With it being Diwali, industries and vehicles may not be playing much of a role and firecrackers are likely to be the major source (of pollution),” said Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director, research and advocacy at the Centre for Science and Environment.

HT reported on Wednesday that according to the forecast by weather and pollution monitoring agencies, the air quality in Delhi will slip into the severe zone, if the Delhi government’s ban on storage, sale and use of firecrackers was violated.

This is evident from the extremely high PM 2.5 concentration recorded at Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range monitoring station (1,731µg/m3) that is situated in a largely green area. Experts said since it is flanked by residential colonies, and having no other major source of pollution around, the high PM2.5 levels are indicative of cracker bursting.

To be sure, the use of firecrackers in the city coincided with more than 3,000 farm fires in Punjab and Haryana contributing to 36% of the air pollution in Delhi — the highest this season so far.

The peak pollution level across Delhi was generally recorded between midnight and 1am, but some locations also saw a spike at 3am as well, including Mandir Marg (1,600 µg/m3), Anand Vihar (1,714µg/m3), Vivek Vihar (1,604µg/m3) and Ashok Vihar (1,957µg/m3), indicating that firecrackers may have been burst at these locations well past midnight.

Pramod Kohli (67), general secretary of the Federation of Ashok Vihar Residents’ Welfare Association, said that he could hear firecrackers in the area till 1am. “The spike on Thursday could well be due to firecrackers. We could hear it till 1am, and since I have breathing problems, I could not even step out and ask people to stop. We have been writing to the government for several years to act on local sources of pollution too, but nothing has happened,” he said.

He added that local factors such as open burning of waste and frequent fires at the nearby Bhalswa landfill are perennial sources of pollution in the area.

Professor Mukesh Sharma from IIT Kanpur, part of the team that will carry out real-time apportionment of pollution sources in the city with the Delhi government, said it is difficult to pin-point if firecrackers were alone responsible for the spike in pollution levels, but added that bursting even a few firecrackers would have led to a huge spike in the current scenario. “If the area is congested and compact, some crackers may also create an increase in pollution levels till it reaches a peak, before starting to disperse. Once the real-time source apportionment study commences in Delhi, we will be able to analyse barium, strontium and copper in the air to identify specific emissions from firecrackers,” he said.

According to DPCC data, last year, the locations in Delhi which saw the biggest spike during Diwali were Vivek Vihar (1,970 µg/m3) and Mundka (1,853 µg/m3), while it was 1,798 µg/m3 in the bustling sub-city of Rohini in north Delhi.

Upendra Bharadwaj, president of the Pocket B RWA in Sukhdev Vihar, Okhla, said pollution from firecrackers and the nearby waste-to-energy plant are likely to be the key factors behind Thursday’s high PM 2.5 readings. “There was a layer of ash on our cars in the morning. The waste-to-energy plant has remained a problem throughout the year, and when firecrackers are burst in large numbers, then it all combines to make the air worse,” Bharadwaj said.

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