Blue skies disappear, air pollution returns to Delhi
An air pollution expert has announced that the air quality in the city of Delhi has fallen to poor levels again.
Anumita Roychowdhury, who is also the executive director at the New Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment, said the air pollution was as a result of the onset of winter accompanied with a drop in temperature and a series of industrial activities.
Roychowdhury said, “The city’s air quality index continued to remain in the poor zone on the fifth consecutive day on Sunday.”
This lead the experts to demand long-term plans and enforcement of measures to tackle the problem, she explained.
“Solutions are all known and are also part of the longer-term action plan [to solve the problem]. The challenge, however, lies in the scalability and stringency of enforcement of the measures,” Roychowdhury added.
She said some of the measures could be implemented in the short run as an emergency response to control winter pollution.
Roychowdhury said their analysis “this year shows that after the blue-sky experience during the [coronavirus] pandemic linked to lockdown phases and the monsoon months, pollution levels have started to rise again due to the opening up of the economy.”