“Delhi’s air is much cleaner than expected and significantly less polluted than last year although the cold and calm weather should have intensified the haze, said the agency that monitors air quality.
The capital has seen a lowering of particulate matter, both PM 2.5 and PM 10, in recent days, said Gufran Beig, director of the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), under the ministry of earth sciences. PM 2.5 or particulate matter of 2.5 microns in diameter denotes fine, breathable particles, while PM 10 refers to bigger and relatively less dangerous ones.
The development comes amid a debate about proposals to restrict the use of personal vehicles and the closure of power plants in the city where an estimated 80,000 trucks, many of them overloaded, poorly maintained and heavily polluting pass through every night. The air in Delhi’s Lodhi Road area, albeit at some distance from the routes that trucks take, has improved to “moderate” levels in recent days but the rest of the city’s air quality remains “very poor.” But it could easily have deteriorated to “severe” as winter takes hold, the agency said in a statement entitled ‘First good indicator of air pollution in Delhi.'” The Economic Times. Read it on delhiair.org.
Pollution surprise: Delhi’s air quality has improved since year ago
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