Air quality improves in Delhi, AQI in 'moderate' category

After being submerged under thick smog in the last few days, the quality of air in the national capital region has moved from "poor" category to "moderate" category on Monday.

However, some areas continue to remain in the "poor" category.

According to the Air Quality Index (AQI) data by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the major pollutants PM 2.5 was recorded at 188 and PM 10 at 174 in Lodhi Road, Aya Nagar docked at 103, Burari crossing at 183 and CRRI Mathura road recorded 192 air quality levels.

AQI in areas such as ITO (215), Dwarka sector 6 (226) and Jahangirpuri (249) still remain in "poor" category this morning.

With a sunny morning, the residents took a sigh of relief hoping to see brighter mornings in the upcoming days.

"It was very difficult to even step out of the house last week, but from two days, though air quality is still bad but we can at least take a walk outside," Vihilranjan told ANI.

Harish Pandey, another Delhi resident said, "Today, the quality of air is better. But it will still take a few more days for pollution levels to come down further. Many factors have led to this deterioration of air -- festivals, traffic and stubble burning have harmed the environment badly."

"We have now become habitual and believe that AQI below 200 is normal for us. The Central government and the Delhi government are just playing the blame game and doing nothing to find solutions. Also, the odd-even scheme has not been so fruitful," Rakesh Bandhi told ANI.

Residents in the Delhi-NCR have been gasping for fresh air due to the noxious smog that has enveloped the region mostly owing to incidents of stubble burning in Haryana and Punjab.