Delhi air pollution: Five major developments you need to know!

Air quality in Delhi continued to be severe with level of both pollutants breaching the 400 mark.

New Delhi: The air quality in the national capital remains to be unsafe although the level of pollution came down slightly on Thursday, with the partiulate matter measuring three to four times above the prescribed limits.

According to System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting & Research (SAFAR), the pollution level at Pitampura, Dhirpur, Pusa, and Airport Terminal 3 came down to "very poor" level from "severe", with PM (particulate matter) 2.5 and PM 10 measuring below 400 for the first time this month.

However, at Delhi University station in north Delhi, air quality continued to be severe with level of both pollutants breaching the 400 mark.

Here are five latest major developments that took place you need to know about Delhi's toxic air:

• On Thursday, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) passed a slew of directions including setting up of centralised and state level monitoring committees to prepare action plans to combat pollution while it asked four northern states to consider banning 10-year-old diesel vehicles.
• The green tribunal also asked Delhi and its four neighbouring states to take a set of emergency measures that include sprinkling water from choppers, stopping construction activities and shutting down polluting power plants and gensets whenever air pollution reaches severe levels.
• The Supreme Court on Thursday slammed Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) for not having an action plan ready to deal with the "emergency" smog situation while asking the Centre to come out with time-bound measures to tackle the graded level of worsening air quality.
• The Delhi High Court on Thursday slammed Arvind Kejriwal government and other agencies over alarming pollution in the city and ranked it as the worst in the country. It also held government inaction and stubble burning in Punjab as the real culprits in robbing 20 million Delhi'ites of three years of their life expectancy, which amounts to "genocide" and "murder".

In the wake of the severe air pollution witnessed across Delhi and NCR post Diwali, at least 1,400 students wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to declare a 'National Clean Air Day'.

In their letters, the students urged the Prime Minister to take concrete measures to curb air pollution in Delhi and Haryana. They also suggested several measures like planting more trees, banning crackers on Diwali, curbing crop-residue burning, introducing 'Odd-Even' scheme and promoting the use of bicycles to tackle air pollution.

(With Agencies input)