Delhi pollution: Thick smog continues to cover city; air quality worsens - Watch

New Delhi: The air quality in the national capital continues to remain alarming as thick smog covers the city on Saturday, affecting visibility.

Peak level of respirable pollutants PM 2.5 and PM10 had violated the safe limits by over 15 times in Delhi at places like R K Puram. The prescribed standard of PM 2.5 is 60 micrograms per cubic metre, but it touched 955 in real-time during early morning hours.

Watch as morning smog continues to cover central Delhi on Saturday!

Although the air quality in Delhi and Gurgaon slightly improved on account of light wind from Rajasthan on Friday, there's no respite from toxic smog for the residents.

As per official data, the Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi improved from 432, labelled ‘severe’ on Thursday and Wednesday, to 372 labelled ‘very poor’ on Friday. The AQI of Gurgaon also improved from 454 on Thursday to 263 on Friday.

In view of the heavy smog and pollution, all schools (1,700) running under the three municipal corporations of Delhi have been ordered to be closed on Saturday.

On Friday, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) pulled up the Centre and the Delhi government for "shifting blame" and not taking steps to tackle the alarming air pollution level in the national capital, dubbed as the worst in 17 years.

The Environment Ministry has held weak enforcement mechanism for rising pollution and asked states to "strictly" implement a host of measures, including checking spread of fly ash from Delhi's Badarpur plant and shutting down of old brick kilns.

(With Agencies input)