Delhi air quality still in 'very poor' category without any improvement

Delhi's Air Quality Index (AQI) was at 369 --'very poor'-- at 8 am, according to SAFAR

Delhi's air remained toxic on Wednesday even as rains are expected in the next couple of days will likely improve months-long pollution.

The city’s Air Quality Index (AQI) was at 369 --'very 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'.

SAFAR on Monday had said, "High winds and intermittent rains are likely during January 5 to January 8 that are expected to improve AQI significantly to 'lower end of very poor' through strong dispersion and wet deposition. Mixing layer height continues to be about 1 km."

Delhi this morning again became the world's topmost polluted city with an AQI of 292, said IQAir, a website that tracks air quality worldwide. Kolkata was the only other Indian city on the list at the fifth spot with an AQI of 167.

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.