Jaipurites woke up to a hefty smog blanket the next day after Diwali. The toxic harmful smog was enough to deteriorate the air quality of the State's capital as the air quality breached the ‘very poor’ category.
As a result of complete disregard for the ban on firecrackers, Jaipur’s Air Quality Index (AQI) index rose to 364 on Friday.
This is the harshest deterioration since 2016, the year when Air Quality Index monitoring began in the city. The city was breathing clean before Diwali with an AQI of 162.
In 2016, 2017, and 2020 (COVID year), the Air Quality Index a day before and after the festival was quite fine as the city did not face much fluctuation in the AQI.
The quality of air is not decorating just in Jaipur; the Air Quality Index also took a big dip in the Jodhpur, Udaipur, Kota, Ajmer, and Pali districts with the numbers going well above 200.
Jodhpur was in the race with Jaipur as the AQI of Jodhpur touched 342 on Friday, while Kota’s Air Quality Index went up to 304.
The Central Pollution Control Board’s control room data indicated Jaipur’s smog monitoring station recording a harsh breakdown in air quality with a concentration of pollutants like PM2.5 taking off.
At the Jaipur commissionerate’s monitoring station, the PM2.5 level put down from midnight to 8 am on Diwali day was 157.3 micrograms per cubic meter, which touched 355.63 in the same period the next day. The same monitoring trend was seen at the Adarsh Nagar pollution monitoring station.
The level of PM2.5 at the Adarsh Nagar pollution monitoring station was not as much as it was at the Jaipur commissionerate. From 12:00 am to 8 am on Diwali day, the PM2.5 level recorded was 141.63 micrograms per cubic meter, which touched 272.51 in the same period the next day.