Delhi Air Quality Stays ‘Very Poor’ at 349 for Second Day

New Delhi:The air quality in the national capital remained in the "very poor" category at 349 for the second consecutive day on Friday. Raising the issue in Parliament, Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi sought a discussion on the issue of air pollution in the Lok Sabha.

Citing that major cities across the country are living under a blanket of poisonous air, Mr Gandhi, during Zero Hour, sought a discussion on the issue of air pollution in the Lok Sabha. He urged the government to frame a discussion in such a manner that the Opposition and the Treasury benches can find a solution to the problem instead of trading abuses.

"Most of our major cities are living under a blanket of poisonous air… We should have a detailed discussion in Parliament on this. The Prime Minister should put in place a methodical, systematic plan for each city, one that can, over the next 5 or 10 years, make life easier for our people," the Congress leader said.

Meanwhile, a parliamentary panel asked the Centre to come up with the updated India's National Ambient Air Quality Standards "at the earliest", noting that the standards were last revised in 2009.

Earlier on Thursday, the government told Parliament that global air quality rankings cited by various organisations are not conducted by any official authority and that the World Health Organisation's (WHO) air quality guidelines serve only as advisory values, not binding standards.

The government said India has already notified its National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for 12 pollutants to protect public health and environmental quality. It also clarified that while no global authority ranks countries officially, it conducts its own annual Swachh Vayu Survekshan to assess and rank 130 cities covered under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) on the basis of air quality improvement measures.

On Friday, Delhi's air quality hovered in the "very poor" bracket. According to experts, a further spike could push the city's air into the "severe" zone over the weekend.

Of the 39 monitoring stations in the national capital, 27 on Friday recorded "very poor" air and six fell in the "severe" band, with Jahangirpuri reporting the worst reading of 432, according to the the Central Pollution Control Board's (CPCB)Sameer app.

The decision support system (DSS) for Delhi's air quality management estimated transport as the biggest contributor to air pollution in the city at 16.5 per cent. The city and peripheral industries contributed 8.6 per cent, residential sources up to 4.1 per cent, construction 2.2 per cent and waste burning 1.4 per cent.

In a report tabled in the Lok Sabha on Friday, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change recommended that all manual stations in Delhi-NCR be upgraded to continuous ambient air quality monitoring systems.

It observed that the current distribution of air quality monitoring stations in Delhi is "heavily skewed" towards central and southern parts of the city, which are relatively less populated, greener and more affluent. The committee said this geographical bias leads to "a distorted and nonrepresentative dataset", systematically excluding more polluted, densely populated and less affluent areas.

The panel also noted that most of the six new continuous monitoring stations proposed for Delhi were again planned in relatively greener areas such as the JNU campus, while the trans-Yamuna region has "again been left out". It "strongly" recommended that the environment ministry reconsider the sites for these six stations and evenly redistribute monitoring stations across Delhi and the wider NCR.

In another development, the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) has set up a 15-member expert committee to tackle vehicular pollution in Delhi-NCR.

The CAQM’s committee headed by Ashok Jhunjhunwala from IIT-Madras will have former AIIMS director Randeep Guleria as co-chair. The panel comprising leading academicians, health specialists and experts from automotive research institutions will prepare a multi-pronged roadmap for vehicular emission reduction.

The panel has been asked to review policies, programmes and regulatory frameworks related to clean mobility, including Bharat Stage norms, electric mobility initiatives and fuel-efficiency standards across Delhi-NCR. The committee will also examine technological readiness, infrastructure needs, cost implications and incentive plans for an accelerated electric vehicle transition and recommend additional measures as needed.