Air quality in North India saw a significant improvement today after stubble burning in the states of Punjab and Haryana came to an end. In a series of tweets by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today, he commented on the strong link between stubble burning in neighbouring states and the deterioration in air quality observed over the last few weeks. Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said, "A very strong correlation can be seen between stubble burning and the spike in air pollution in North India. As soon as stubble burning began in the first week of Oct, the AQI started rising. Now that burning is coming to an end, air quality is also improving."He said, "Some people were saying that only 5 percent of Delhi's air pollution is due to crop burning. If this were true, how did the air quality index reduced from 500 to less than 200 today? On the issue of air pollution, we cannot indulge in politics. We will have to take strong collective action."In an affidavit to the Supreme Court, the Central Government had said that stubble burning contributes only five percent to Delhi's pollution. However, Delhi doesn't have the necessary tools to conduct a real time source apportionment of air pollution. But the satellite images releases by NASA confirm that as soon as stubble burning began in the first week of October, the air quality of North India deteriorated. Over the past week, stubble burning has reduced as per the same satellite images released by NASA. CM Kejriwal tweeted a photo of the clear blue skies of Delhi as seen today and said, "We live in such a beautiful city. Imagine, if the stubble burning were to stop, our skies will look like this all year round and our health will also improve. We also have to work on reducing Delhi's own pollution."
Delhi's air was clear until 9 October
CM Arvind Kejriwal, "Until October 9, Delhi's air quality was satisfactory. Suddenly from October 10, Delhi's air quality started to fall into poor, very poor and then dangerous category. There are local factors of pollution like that from industry, vehicles and dust. But despite these factors, Delhi's air quality was satisfactory until 9th October, with the air quality index between 90 and 130. Subsequently, suddenly the Air Quality Index crossed 200 from October 10 onwards. NASA's fire map shows the red spots of stubble burning started appearing from October 10. It is clear that stubble burning is responsible for the current pollution. Despite the Supreme Court's order, if the neighboring states do not stop stubble burning, why should the people of Delhi suffer and for how long?"
Delhi did everything to reduce its pollution - CM
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that Delhi did everything to reduce its own pollution. He said, "We shut down the 5 lakh generators by providing 24 hours of electricity, converted industry from polluting fuel to PNG. We started Odd Even scheme to reduce vehicular pollution. Around three million vehicles hit the streets of Delhi every day, which went down to just 1.5 million vehicles during Odd Even. This helped reduce the local sources of pollution of Delhi. But the current crisis of air pollution in Delhi was due to stubble in neighboring states.