Delhi woke up to a grey morning with air quality inching closer to emergency levels on Tuesday

New Delhi: Delhi woke up to a grey morning with air quality inching closer to emergency levels on Tuesday.

Air quality monitoring stations at Mandir Marg, Punjabi Bagh, Pusa, Rohini, Patparganj, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Najafgarh, Sri Aurobindo Marg and Okhla Phase 2 maxed out as air quality indexes hit the 500 mark, Central Pollution Control Board data showed.

Delhi's air quality The smog reduced the visibility to merely 300 meters in the morning affecting traffic, an official of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

Delhi recorded an AQI of 487 at 9 am, which falls in the severe category. The neighbouring cities of Faridabad (474), Ghaziabad (476), Noida (490), Greater Noida (467), and Gurugram (469) also recorded severe air quality.

This is the sixth severe air day on the trot in Delhi. The city witnessed seven severe air days in November last year.

Government agencies and experts said calm wind speeds were exacerbating the effect of stubble burning and a quick recovery is not possible unless the number of farm fires reduces drastically.

Delhi's air quality

The National Green Tribunal on Monday imposed a total ban on sale or use of all kinds of firecrackers in the National Capital Region (NCR) from November 9 midnight to November 30 midnight, saying "celebration by crackers is for happiness and not to celebrate deaths and diseases".

No quick recovery is expected unless a drastic reduction in fire counts takes place, it said.

According to the IMD, Delhi recorded calm winds and a minimum temperature of 10.8 degrees Celsius on Tuesday morning.

There was moderate fog in the morning which led to smog. It reduced visibility to 300 meters at the Safdarjung and Palam weather stations, an IMD official said.