Delhi's air quality slips to 'very poor' category as farm fires pick up

New Delhi: The overall air quality of Delhi slipped to the ‘very poor’ category on Monday, as the Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) recorded Air Quality Indexing (AQI) of 302.

The agency, however, has predicted that the air quality will "improve to the upper end of poor" due to the expected change in wind direction to westerly/south-westerly reducing transport of emissions from stubble burning.

"Isolated rainfall is likely in the upwind region that would improve air quality," it added. As per SAFAR, the share of crop residue burning emissions in PM2.5 is about 8 per cent.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Sunday predicted that the air quality in the national capital is likely to be in the lower end of the Very Poor category on November 1-2. "The air quality is likely to remain in the lower end of Very Poor category till November 4 and then deteriorate on November 5-6 significantly. 

PM2.5 to be the predominant pollutant," IMD said.

As per government agencies, an AQI within the range of 0-5 is regarded as ‘good’, 51-100 is ‘satisfactory’, 101-200 is `moderate`, 201-300 is `poor` and 301-400 is ‘very poor’ and 401-500 is considered `severe`.