A thick haze shrouded Delhi’s skyline on Tuesday morning, as the national capital’s air quality remained in the “very poor” category, just days ahead of Diwali.
Only one station, IGNOU in Maidangarhi, was in the moderate category. However, the figures need to be viewed in context that burning has shifted to later hours each year. Delhi’s air quality index (AQI) stood at 331 at 7:05 am on Tuesday. The 24-hour average AQI on Monday was 324, the worst in 271 days, up 63 points from Sunday’s 261. Data from 58 of the 59 monitoring stations showed that eight were in the severe category on Tuesday morning, including Bawana, Narela and Punjabi Bagh. On Tuesday morning, CPCB listed PM2.5 as the main pollutant at 53 of Delhi’s 58 reporting stations and PM10 at five. At the same time a day earlier, the corresponding figures were 51 and seven, respectively. NASA satellite data detected 1,561 farm fires in Punjab and Haryana between October 1 and November 2, 1,406 in Punjab and 155 in Haryana. Of these, 167 were recorded on November 2. Over the same period last season, the satellite counted 2,068 fires. In 2025, 98 per cent of the fire heat recorded by Meteosat came after 3 pm, compared with 94 per cent in 2024. Both figures are undercounts, as most of the burning now takes place after the satellite passes over the region at around 1:30 pm. The deteriorating air quality prompted the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) to invoke Stage 2 of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) across the national capital region on Monday.
The two counts could therefore differ for this reason alone.
It was 60 on Friday, when the air quality was “satisfactory”. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) classifies an AQI of 0–50 as “good”, 51–100 as “satisfactory”, 101–200 as “moderate”, 201–300 as “poor”, 301–400 as “very poor” and 401–500 as “severe”.
Other measures include higher parking fees to discourage private vehicle use and ensuring resident welfare associations (RWAs) provide electric heaters to security staff to prevent open burning. Under Stage 2, the Delhi government and NCR state governments have been directed to stagger office timings for government and municipal employees in Delhi and the districts of Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddha Nagar. These measures are also part of Delhi’s winter action plan, which came into effect on November 1.
