Delhi air improves to 'satisfactory' category, best AQI in over 2 months

The city's Air Quality Index (AQI) was at 90 --'satisfactory'-- at 8 am, according to SAFAR

Delhi's air quality was 'satisfactory' on Sunday: the best in over two months after the city and places around it witnessed heavy rainfall and thunderstorm on Saturday. 

The city’s Air Quality Index (AQI) was at 90 at 8 am, according to the Ministry of Earth Sciences' air quality forecast agency SAFAR. Readings below 50 are considered safe, while anything above 300 is considered hazardous or 'severe'.

After heavy rainfall in the capital, Delhi's AQI  on Saturday was 91, in the 'satisfactory' category, according to Central Pollution Control Board's 24-hour AQI bulletin at 4 pm.

This came after Delhi recorded its highest rainfall in a day for January in 22 years on Saturday, yielding the city's best air quality in over two months. The last time Delhi's air was in this category was on October 25 last year.

For the first time in over two months, Delhi was not on IQair's list of the world's top ten most polluted cities.

Preliminary data from a month-long experiment has shown that indoor air pollution levels were nearly half of the outdoor levels in Delhi-NCR during November-December so far.

Air pollution costs Indian businesses $95 billion or roughly 3 per cent of its GDP every year, according to U.K.-based non-profit Clean Air Fund and the Confederation of Indian Industry, Bloomberg has reported.