New Delhi, October 25
The national capital Delhi was engulfed in a layer of smog on Friday and the air quality was recorded at 283 at 8 a.m. As per data recorded at 8:00 am, the AQI at Anand Vihar was recorded as 218, 245 at Punjabi Bagh, 276 at India Gate, 288 at Jhilmil Industrial area. An AQI between 0-50 is considered good, 51-100 is satisfactory, 101-200 is moderate, 201-300 is poor, 301-400 is very poor, and 401-500 is severe.
Shree Krishna, a visitor at India Gate said that the pollution in the last couple of days had increased. “The pollution in the last couple of days has increased. It was a little better yesterday, and a little better today. However, you can always feel the dust while breathing.
During Diwali and winter, it becomes much worse. The state government and central government are not putting in any effort. The people also need to take required measures like using public transport.” Kalyani Tiwari, a resident said that she had started facing breathing issues due to the increasing pollution in the city. “I have been facing headaches and constant breathing issues because of the pollution. The government needs to start cleaning the rivers and with Chaat Puja and other festivities coming up, the government needs to start taking action.” Rakesh Kumar, another resident also raised concerns and said, “If this is the condition before Diwali, then how scary is it going to get after Diwali? The pollution has been increasing day by day here. The government needs to take action on this.”
Another India gate visitor said that the lack of coordination between the people and the government had to be solved. “Both the people and the government are responsible for the situation here. There is no coordination. We are inhaling pollution every day. There need to be strict measures taken,” said the resident.
Another resident said the pollution in the coming days would increase to such a level that people would not be able to get out of their residences. “In a couple of days, the pollution will increase so much that we won’t be able to step out of our residences. We are very troubled here because of the pollution. It has started causing problems to our bodies.
The dust has increased a lot. The government is not doing anything on this issue,” said another resident. Meanwhile, in the Yamuna River, toxic foam was seen floating as the high pollution level affected the river. On October 24, the Public Work Department (PWD) vehicles sprinkled water in several areas to tackle the issue of air pollution.
The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) has invoked the Stage II GRAP Action Plan across the National Capital Region. This includes carrying out mechanical/vacuum sweeping and water sprinkling of the identified roads on a daily basis
