Friday (November 1): A Supreme Court mandated panel today declared a public health emergency in the Delhi-NCR region and banned construction activity till November 5.
The Delhi government today decided to shut all schools till November 5 after EPCA declared a public health emergency in the Delhi-NCR region in the wake of rising level of pollution.
As the pollution levels in the region entered the “severe plus” category, the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority also banned the bursting of crackers during the winter season.
In a letter to chief secretaries of Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, EPCA Chairman Bhure Lal said, “The air quality in Delhi and NCR deteriorated further last night and is now at the severe plus level. We have to take this as a public heath emergency as it will have adverse health impacts on all, particularly our children.”
Under these circumstances, he said, construction activities, hot mix plants and stone crushers in Delhi, Faridabad, Gurugram, Ghaziabad, Noida and Greater Noida will remain closed till morning of November 5.
The blanket of haze over Delhi thickened on Friday morning with the national capital’s pollution levels increasing overnight.
Bhure Lal said pollution touched “severe plus” levels early on Friday morning but came back to “severe” category later. According to official data, the overall Air Quality Index (AQI) at 1 pm on Friday was recorded at 480, which falls in the “severe” category.
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 falls in the ‘severe-plus emergency’ category.
Earlier, the EPCA had banned construction activities only for the period between 6 pm and 10 am till November 2. Now, no construction can take place even in daytime.
