India

Delhi’s Air Quality Hits Severe Levels, 10 Stations Top 400 AQI

By HT News Desk

An analysis of data from the HT Pollution Dashboard shows that 31 monitoring stations in Delhi recorded ‘severe’ air quality, while 28 were classified as ‘very poor’. On Friday, Delhi’s overall air quality index (AQI) was 391, close to the 400 mark that would place it in the ‘severe’ category. The dashboard tracks the average readings from all monitoring stations reported by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), which calculates the hourly AQI for each station using a running average of the previous 24 hours. The ten Delhi stations with the highest AQI readings in the latest update were: Rohini (474), Punjabi Bagh (465), Jahangirpuri (458), DTU (454), RK Puram (450), Mundka (446), Vivek Vihar (438), Sonia Vihar (436), Bawana (435), and Alipur (434). The Supreme Court, in a suo motu hearing on Delhi’s pollution crisis, highlighted vehicle emissions as a major contributor to air pollution in the Delhi-NCR region. Chief Justice Surya Kant, along with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, urged immediate, medium‑term and long‑term measures to reduce pollution levels and expressed concern over heavy traffic across Delhi and its neighbouring areas, including Ghaziabad, Greater Noida, Gurugram and Faridabad. The bench noted that the roads connecting Delhi to the NCR are heavily trafficked, which is a major problem for air quality. The HT Pollution Dashboard allows users to check air quality at their nearest station hour by hour at hindustantimes.com/breathe.