Delhi breathes poisonous air on Diwali morning as air quality plunges towards ‘severe’ category
New Delhi: Delhi woke up on Sunday to a dense blanket of smog on Diwali morning, with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) recording an overall Air Quality Index (AQI) of 384. The reading placed the national capital firmly in the ‘very poor’ category, marking its dirtiest festival eve in nearly a decade. By 6 am, 11 of the 23 reporting stations had already crossed the 400-mark into the ‘severe’ zone, with Punjabi Bagh clocking the worst numbers at 450.
The bad air comes on the back of a rapid build-up over the past week. Between rising stubble fires in Punjab and Haryana, which hit a seasonal high on Saturday according to ISRO satellite data, and near-still winds after sunset, pollutants simply had nowhere to go. Even before the main Diwali night celebrations began, the city’s air on Saturday evening was already 30 per cent dirtier than the night before.
Saturday’s 4 pm bulletin recorded an AQI of 369, making it the highest pre-Diwali reading since 2016, when the index touched 404. While the afternoon saw a slightly deeper mixing layer that offered brief ventilation, the relief vanished as soon as the evening cracker window opened at 8 pm. Across 55 reporting stations, average PM2.5 levels surged from 177 micrograms per cubic metre at 7:45 pm to 289 by 10 pm. Residential areas bore the brunt: Punjabi Bagh shot up from 208 to 593 in an hour, while Mundka later touched a staggering 718.
Ground reality clashes with cracker rules
The Supreme Court had permitted only certified green crackers within limited time slots one hour in the morning and two in the evening over the weekend. The court noted that a blanket ban had failed to stop illicit sales in earlier years. However, enforcing the guidelines on the ground has proved difficult for the 250 special police teams deployed across the city.
As one enforcement officer conceded to the Hindustan Times on Saturday, “It is nearly impossible to determine whether a cracker that a person burst was green or not,” adding that monitoring every pocket across the city within set hours “is not humanly possible.” Conventional crackers and boxes lacking the mandatory QR codes continued to be traded under the counter in major wholesale hubs like Sadar Bazaar and Chandni Chowk.
Calm winds set up a grim night ahead
Forecasts from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) predict the city-wide AQI will breach 400 and touch 406 by early Monday morning as Diwali night firecrackers combine with weak ground winds. Last year, average PM2.5 levels hit 1,137 micrograms per cubic metre at 2 am on Diwali night, against the national safe limit of 60.
Sunil Dahiya, founder and lead analyst at think-tank Envirocatalysts, warned that the city is entering festival night from a much higher baseline “The next 48 hours look worse. Winds stay weak, and the forecasts already put Delhi at or near ‘severe’ for Diwali and the day after.
Every Diwali since 2015 has left the city’s air worse the next day than the day before Diwali, and this year starts from a much higher base. Cutting firecrackers, sending fewer trucks into the city and stopping waste burning over the next two days are the measures most likely to make a difference.”