Heena Sharma Blog

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said there is no need of the odd-even road rationing scheme now as the pollution levels have come down. The Delhi government brought the scheme into effect from November 4 as the city's air quality plunged into the "severe" category. The scheme concluded on November 15 with Kejriwal saying it could be extended if required. He had said that a final decision on extension will be taken on Monday. "The sky is clear now, there is no need of it (scheme)", he said in a press conference. Over 5,000 violators of the rule were fined with Rs 4,000 each during the scheme. The air quality in Delhi improved marginally on Monday but remained in the "poor" category for the second consecutive day. At 9 am on Monday, the air quality index (AQI) in the national capital stood at 207 against an AQI of 254 at the same time on Sunday. Read More

There seems to be no end to the woes of people residing in Delhi and other parts of north India. On Monday morning, Delhi air quality was in 'severe-plus emergency' category. SAFAR, the government-run air quality monitoring and weather forecasting agency, said Delhi’s air quality index (AQI) was 708 at 6:30 am, which is 14 times the safe level of 0-50.. Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida and Ghaziabad also saw their air quality in the severe-plus emergency overall category. NASA satellite imagery showed vast swathes of the northern plains, covering Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, blanketed under a smoky haze. Weather experts said any significant improvement in the situation is highly unlikely unless there is rainfall, which may occur on November 7 and 8 To tackle this, the odd-even scheme kick started today, with only even-numbered non-transport vehicles allowed on Delhi roads on the first day of the exercise. The impact of the scheme remains to be seen. The third...

Air pollution, both outside and inside homes, is a silent and deadly killer responsible for the premature deaths of seven million people each year, including 600,000 children, according to a UN Special Rapporteur on environment and human rights. David Boyd, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada, said that over six billion people, one-third of them children, are regularly inhaling air so polluted that it puts their life, health and well-being at risk. Every hour, 800 people are dying, many after years of suffering from cancer, respiratory illnesses or heart disease directly caused by breathing bad air. Air pollutants are everywhere, largely caused by burning of fossil fuels for electricity, transportation, and heating, as well as from industrial activities, poor waste management and agricultural practice. Women and children, who in many less wealthy countries spend a lot of time at home, are disproportionally affected by indoor air pollutio...

For the third consecutive day, the air quality in the national capital was in the severe category on Tuesday. According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data, the overall air quality index (AQI) in the national capital on New Year's Day was 404, while the Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting (SAFAR) recorded an AQI of 405, both of which are under the 'severe' category. Nineteen areas in Delhi recorded 'severe' pollution, while 14 witnessed 'very poor' air quality, the CPCB data showed. Ghaziabad and Noida recorded 'severe' air quality, while in Faridabad and Gurgaon recorded it was in the 'very poor' category. The overall PM2.5 level (fine particulate matter in the air with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometer) was recorded at 280 and the PM10 level at 465 in Delhi, the CPCB said. The SAFAR has said the air quality would improve slightly "provided that no additional local emi...

A thick blanket of haze continued to engulf the national capital on Friday, experts warned that the air quality is likely to worsen further as the pollution level entered the "severe-plus emergency" category, or 11 times the permissible limit, due to rampant bursting of toxic firecrackers on Diwali , in violation of a Supreme Court order. The Supreme Court's firecracker ban on Diwali was violated with impunity across Delhi and NCR on Diwali with people bursting crackers till late into the night leading to a thick haze on Thursday morning and air quality dipping six times from the normal. As a result of smoke from the firecrackers, the overall AQI in Delhi jumped to 422 which falls in the severe category, according to the data by SAFAR. The PM2.5 (particles in the air with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometres) and PM10 concentrations touched 492 and 618 respectively, both in the severe category, according to SAFAR data. An AQI between 0 and 50 is considere...