The Ministry of Earth Sciences’ air quality monitoring agency SAFAR on Sunday said that stubble burning has peaked in the states neighbouring Delhi and its share in the pollution level in the national capital rose to 40 per cent.
“Stubble burning share in PM 2.5 has increased and is estimated at 40 per cent for today, the highest of the season,” said the SAFAR, adding 3,216 farm fires were spotted over Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand on Saturday.
The agency said that better ventilation condition is forecasted for the next two days.
However, the SAFAR model predicted that the AQI is likely to improve only marginally (within very poor) for Sunday and Monday.
“It is set to marginally deteriorate on November 3, increased local surface wind speed with faster dispersion conditions is counteracting on two counts, namely, increased fire-related emission and accumulated intrusion mass load. Increased fire-related emission than existing conditions may lead to deterioration of AQI.”
The share of stubble burning in Delhi was highest on Sunday this week about PM 2.5 pollution was 40 per cent, it was 32 per cent on Saturday, 19 per cent on Friday and 36 per cent on Thursday.
In 2019, according to SAFAR data the stubble burning’s contribution to Delhi’s pollution had peaked to 44 per cent on November 1.
The satellite image shows dense stubble burning and the air quality has not improved despite improved ventilation due to high stubble burning and pollutants during the night due to winters.
