Ambient air quality hits bad patch in Faridabad

Bijendra Ahlawat

Tribune News Service

Faridabad, January 12

The ambient air quality of the city turned severe on Saturday with the PM-2.5 (particulate matter of 2.5 micrograms hanging in air) touching the level of 418. This is perhaps the lowest so far this year. The safe value of PM-2.5 is 60 or less.

Describing the current level of air quality as hazardous, an official of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board said it was the eighth time this month when the PM-2.5 had been 400 or above.

He said while the smoggy conditions were likely to continue, this was mainly due to decrease in temperature over the past two weeks and availability of local sources of pollution, includeing smoke caused by traffic and industry and burning of waste in the open, accompanied by dusty conditions.

With the average level recorded at 352 in the past 11 days, January 12 recorded the highest at 418 (3.10 pm) while it was the lowest at 246 on January 10.

The average of the first 11 days of January last year was recorded at 345, which was lower by seven points. The highest in this period last year was recorded at 434.

“The current level of air quality can affect healthy people and severely impact those having respiratory disorders or similar diseases,” said Dr Tarun Kashyap, a local physician.

Dr PKMK Das of the NGT monitoring committee in Gurugram blamed certain factors like drop in temperature, lack of adequate wind speed and effect of poor air from Delhi.

He said lower level of mixing heights (movement of air from ground to atmosphere), which reduced to 1.5 km, had created smoggy conditions and bad air. The conditions were unlikely to improve much as January recorded the lowest temperature of the year, he added.