Delhi air quality improves to 'poor' category as rain brings some relief

The city's Air Quality Index (AQI) was at 273 --'poor'-- at 8 am, according to SAFAR

Delhi's air quality improved to the 'poor' category on Friday as intermittent rains brought some relief in pollution in the national capital.

The city’s Air Quality Index (AQI) was at 273 --'poor'-- 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'. 

On Thursday at 4 pm, Delhi's  24-hour AQI  read 258, according to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data. This was after the national capital's AQI on Thursday morning at 8 am was in the 'very poor' category with an AQI of 380.

The IMD has said that rains will continue till January 9. 

Delhi this morning was the world's fifth most polluted city with an AQI of 169, said IQAir, a website that tracks air quality worldwide. Delhi was followed by Kolkata at the sixth spot with an AQI of 168 and Mumbai at the ninth spot with an AQI of 160.

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.