The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) on Monday said initial trends showed odd even will have a positive impact on the Capital’s air quality.
Concrete assessment, however, will be made after studying the impact for a few more days, officials said.
According to the DPCC, PM2.5 levels were found within permissible limit (below 60) at 42 out of 74 locations, according to monitoring by mobile vans on Saturday. “PM2.5 levels recorded below 100 at nearly 69 locations. PM10 levels were recorded below 200 at 45 locations,” it said.
HT on Monday reported that air pollution not only spiked across Delhi on April 16 but was also three times higher than it was before the launch of round two at some places. The Energy and Resources Institute data, made available to HT, showed that levels of fine particulate matter -- PM2.5 and PM10 -- violated the safety standard at most places on Saturday. However, experts had blamed the high pollution on low wind speed.
According to a scientific analysis of air quality done by the Ministry of Earth Sciences’ System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), the air pollution levels between
Friday and Sunday showed a steady decrease.
This decrease is evident in the concentrations of PM 2.5, PM 10 and ozone levels. The concentrations of PM 2.5 and PM 1o were high, however, when compared to their levels on April 5 and April 11 - when the city saw the cleanest air of the month so far.
Ozone levels, however, were the lowest on Sunday since the beginning of the month.
According to SAFAR, the average PM 2.5 concentration in Delhi on Tuesday is expected to be 80 micro gram per cubic metre. The standard is 60 micro gram per cubic metre. On Monday, the average PM 2.5 concentration was 78 micro gram per cubic metre.
The Delhi government was forced to take the road rationing measure for the first time in January as pollution levels touched alarming levels.
The success of the scheme in reducing pollution is open to debate. Though vehicular emissions are big contributors to air pollution, other factors such as construction work and dust also play a role. Moreover, two-wheelers were left out despite them being bigger emitters of pollutants than cars.
