As India celebrated the holiday of Diwali, pollution levels in Delhi skyrocketed, with residents across the national capital reporting AQI readings of 1,000 or even higher.
Apart from concerned citizens flooding social media, even Rajya Sabha MP and Trinamool Congress (TMC) spokesperson Saket Gokhale even shared a screenshot showing the AQI reading of 1975 at the Mandir Marg monitoring station at 1.30 am on Tuesday.
Pictures of smog-blackened streets that went viral on social media on Tuesday morning seemed to confirm people’s fears that air pollution in Delhi-NCR has reached catastrophic levels after Diwali celebrations.
But yes? It’s not a straightforward answer.
Most of the screenshots shared by social media users appear to be using the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) AQI calculation method, which allows numbers much higher than the 401-500 range of “severe” air pollution we typically see in India.
Indian government agencies use the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) method to calculate AQI, which defines the “severe” category as falling between 401-500.
The difference between the system, which lacks an upper limit, and the CPCB method is that international air quality monitoring platforms such as IQAir often show values much higher than official Indian data.
For example, a place that has an AQI value of 1000 according to an international platform could have an AQI value of 500 or even less according to CPCB.
