Cracker ban goes up in smoke on Diwali night, Delhi wakes up to hazy morning. Air quality at hazardous level.

Delhi celebrated Diwali, dashing the hopes of cracker-free festivities, following a Supreme Court ban on the sale of firecrackers in the National Capital Region (NCR).The cracker-bursting was relatively subdued as compared to previous years. However, the revelers in the adjoining townships of Delhi such as Noida, Gurgaon and Faridabad paid little heed to the apex court’s writ and environmentalists’ concerns.

Real-time pollution data is quite alarming.

The online indicators of the pollution monitoring stations in the city glowed red, indicating a ‘very poor’ air quality as the volume of ultrafine particulates PM 2.5 and PM 10, which enter the respiratory system and manage to reach the bloodstream, sharply rose from around 7 pm. At 10 pm, in Mandir Marg in Delhi, the PM 2.5 concentration was 390 units against the prescribed 60 units, while PM 10 was 480 against the prescribed 100.Real-time pollution data appeared alarming. The Delhi Pollution Control Committee’s (DPCC) R K Puram monitoring station recorded PM 2.5 and PM 10 at 878 and 1,179 micrograms per cubic metre at around 11 pm.

However, the nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide concentrations at 50.84 and 31.20 respectively were well under the prescribed limits.The pollutants had violated the corresponding 24-hour safe limits of 60 and 100 respectively by up to 10 times. According to the SAFAR (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research), the 24-hour rolling average of PM2.5 and PM10 were 154 and 256 micrograms per cubic metre respectively at around 11 pm.

It has forecast that the pollution levels will peak between 11 pm and 3 am.The situation was similar, if not worse, in the neighbouring regions of Delhi such as Gurugram, Noida and Ghaziabad, where crackers were burst as usual, raising question marks on the efficacy of the administration in enforcing the apex court’s ban.