Delhi Air Quality Index Remains Severe: Causes, Current AQI Levels

Delhi Air Quality: Delhi, India’s capital city, is one of the largest and prominent cities of India. Delhi is a vibrant city famous for its rich history and cultural heritage such as India Gate, Rashtrapati Bhavan, Red Fort, Lotus Temple, Akshardham Temple, Jantar Mantar, Qutub Minar, Humayun's Tomb, Jama Masjid, and so on. But apart from all this, Delhi is also famous for its most common headline of the Delhi air crisis. Most of the time, Delhi keeps facing the issues of air pollution and the air quality index of Delhi keeps fluctuating.

Current Status of Delhi Air Quality Index

The latest status of Delhi’s AQI, that is the Air Quality Index, ranges to 233AQI, which signifies that the air quality index is in severe condition of Delhi. The AQI of Delhi is 1.2x above in India, which means that the air quality index of Delhi is 1.2 times significantly higher than the other cities of India. The data of the Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi, is provided by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (Government of NCT of Delhi) and also by the CPCB, that is Central Pollution Control Board of India.

The amount of major pollutants that disturb the air quality index of Delhi are: 335ppb of carbon monoxide, 198µg/m³ of particulate matter(pm10), 156µg/m³ of particulate matter(pm2.5), 39ppb of ozone, 32ppb of nitrogen dioxide and 8ppb of sulphur dioxide.

Contributors and Causes behind the Increase in Delhi Pollution

The rapid growth of urbanisation in Delhi is leading to the rapid growth of pollution. Several reasons result in the increase of pollutionin Delhi, which include:

• One of the major reasons that causes the pollution in Delhi is the population. Population indirectly causes pollution because the greater the pollution, larger the use of vehicles and modes of transport such as cars, bikes, scooters, trucks, buses and auto-rickshaws, which release harmful gases like carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide, contributing in polluting the air.
• Another major reason that causes the pollution in Delhi is traffic jams because in traffic, the vehicles are in resting position but not switched off, which burns the fuels and leads to the exhaustion of emissions.
• The other reason that causes the pollution in Delhi is diesel-powered vehicles since the diesel engines release particulate matter(PM10) and particulate matter(PM2.5), which are major pollutants, leading to pollution.
• Along with Delhi being a metro city, it is also an advanced city that is modernised and modernising even more in all aspects, which involves constructions and the dust and impurities caused from construction sites also leads to pollution.
• Delhi is a city which is leading in industries and industrial aspects and consists of tons of factories so the smoke, chemicals, toxins released from all the factories also leads to pollution.

The pollution in Delhi is a major concern these days and has always been a fact of concern. Already, the latest AQI of Delhi is severe, so stay safe indoors and don’t be the reason for being a contributor to Delhi’s pollution.

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