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Believe it or Not, Delhi’s Air Quality Has ‘Improved’ Over Last 3 Years

Believe it or Not, Delhi’s Air Quality Has ‘Improved’ Over Last 3 Years

New Delhi: Though air pollution in Delhi and surrounding areas twice crossed the “very severe” or emergency level after Diwali due to large-scale stubble burning, especially in Punjab, forcing the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority to declare a ‘public health emergency’ in early November, the Ministry of Environment insists that there has been an “overall improvement in air quality of Delhi in 2019”.

In response to a question in the Lok Sabha, minister of state Babul Supriyo said that in Delhi this year, as per data from January 1, 2019 to November 18, the “number of ‘good’ to ‘moderate’ days increased to 175 in 2019, as compared to 158 in 2018, and number of ‘poor’ to ‘severe’ days reduced to 147, compared to 164 in 2018”.

The severity of air pollution is based on the Air Quality Index. While an AQI between 0 and 50 is considered ‘good’, 51-100 is ‘satisfactory’, 101-200 ‘moderate’, 201-300 ‘poor’, 301-400 ‘very poor’, 401-500 ‘severe’ and 500 plus is said to be ‘severe plus’.

Improvement for third successive year

With respect to Delhi, the ministry said for the third successive year since 2016, there has been an improvement in air quality. It claimed that initiatives taken by the government for the abatement and control of air pollution in Delhi and the National Capital Region since 2016 have yielded good results.

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“As per Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS) data, the number of ‘good’, ‘satisfactory’, and ‘moderate’ days has progressively increased to 159 in 2018, as compared to 152 in 2017 and 106 in 2016, and the number of ‘poor’, ‘very poor’ and ‘severe’ days has reduced to 206, compared to 213 in 2017 and 246 in 2016,” it said.

Furthermore in Delhi, it added that reduction in PM 2.5 levels in 2018 was 7.3% over 2017 and 14.8% over 2016. Likewise, reduction in PM 10 levels in 2018 was 8.6% over 2017 and 16.5% over 2016.

Scheme launched for ‘20%-30% reduction’ in particulate matter

While replying to a question on whether the country is facing a serious environmental crisis, he said the “Government is taking all efforts for the mitigation of air pollution in the country.”

The government said it has launched a National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) under the Central Sector “Control of Pollution” Scheme as a long-term, time-bound, national-level strategy to tackle the air pollution problem across the country in a comprehensive manner with targets to achieve 20%-30% reduction in PM 10 and PM 2.5 concentration by 2024 – while keeping 2017 as the base year for the comparison of concentration.

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Also, it said, 102 cities, most of them in the Indo-Gangetic plains, have been identified for city-specific action plans.

Comprehensive and graded responses in place

The ministry said the Central government had also notified a Comprehensive Action Plan in 2018 identifying timelines and implementing agencies for actions identified for prevention, control and mitigation of air pollution in Delhi and NCR.

Likewise, the Graded Response Action Plan was notified on January 12, 2017 to identify graded measures and implementing agencies for response to four AQI categories – moderate to poor, very poor, severe and severe plus or emergency.

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