As I came out of the Airplane back to Delhi just a day after Diwali, I couldn’t help but notice a layer of translucent air around me. Some might consider it to be a very common phenomenon during winters which is fog, but obviously, the educated can’t be fooled with this polluted air. For those who don’t know what it is they are seeing around them, it is Smog. Smog is a combination of smoke and fog combined in the air making the pollution levels higher.
I wasn’t surprised, to be honest seeing this level of pollution in the air considering last year’s Diwali, which was beyond worse and the visibility being almost nil with the feeling of being literally choked down to not breathing.
According to The Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) data this year, the level of Air Pollution is better than last year showing 326 which”very poor”, this year as compared to 426 which is a severe level of air pollution in 2016 in regard to the standard of Air Quality levels. There also is a data shown by the government claiming that the air quality level of 2017 is better than the past two years.
Even though the Supreme Court of India banned the sales of firecrackers this year due to the bad AQI conditions faced last year, still, the air pollution levels were 5 times higher than the normal Air Quality levels, leading to a 406 which a “hazardous” condition for Air Quality a day after Diwali on Friday.
The Air Quality levels are divided into 6 categories, i.e. 0-50 considered good, 51-100 considered fine, 101-150 considered moderate, 151-200 considered poor, 201- 300 considered very poor, 300 and above considered hazardous.
The rise of Air Pollution also gave rise to a serious amount levels to extremely harmful pollutants like PM 2.5, which are invisible dust particles and PM10, which are visible dust particles in the air, making the levels of these pollutants six times more than the satisfactory AQI Levels.
Even though this Diwali was considerably better than last year, it still has given rise to a series of an unhealthy level of Air Pollution in Delhi and the government must take more severe steps to control it.
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