'Very poor' air quality in some districts of Haryana, Punjab's AQI worse too

Several districts in Haryana on Friday reported air quality indices in the "very poor" category.

Palwal, Ballabhgarh, Rohtak, Yamunanagar, Hisar, Jind reported the "very poor" air quality as their AQIs stood at 374, 317, 319, 311, 332 and 346 respectively, as per the data provided by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

Among other Haryana districts, Ambala (AQI 230), Bahadurgarh (286), Bhiwani (298), Panipat (297), Gurugram (288) and Fatehabad (256) reported air quality in the "poor" category, according to the CPCB data.

In Punjab, Mandi Gobindgarh recorded the air quality (AQI 323) in "very poor" category.

Among other places in the state, Jalandhar's AQI was 259, while Bathinda and Amritsar were comparatively better with AQIs of 148 and 119, respectively, the CPCB data said.

The air quality index in the Union Territory of Chandigarh was recorded at 271, which is considered as "poor".

An AQI between 0-50 is considered "good", 51-100 "satisfactory", 101-200 "moderate", 201-300 "poor", 301-400 "very poor", and 401-500 "severe". Above 500 is "severe-plus or emergency" category.

Even though the number of stubble-burning incidents have significantly dropped now in the two agrarian states, the air quality, which had slightly improved during the past few days, again deteriorated on Friday at many places.