Haze lingers over Delhi; cloud seeding may happen today
The technical glitch continued to impact the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) board data on Monday as the hourly data was not updated for nearly 13 hours.
A visible haze engulfed the city on Monday too as the air quality remained in the “very poor” zone for the second day. Further, the technical glitch continued to impact the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) board data on Monday as the hourly data was not updated for nearly 13 hours.
Delhi’s air quality index (AQI) on the CPCB website was stuck at 315 (very poor) since 10.43pm on Sunday, with the update coming only at noon on Monday, when it was logged at 286. However, by 4pm, when the day’s national bulletin was issued, it deteriorated to a reading of 301. The 4pm reading on Sunday was 315.
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A day earlier, the CPCB, which issues its national bulletin at 4pm, only managed to share the bulletin for the day at 10.45pm, with officials citing technical glitches. Both the website and CPCB’s Sameer app did not share an update on air quality data for 11 hours.
“There were some technical glitches. Old data from some stations had flooded our servers and had to be manually fixed,” a CPCB official aware of the matter said, stating the problem was fixed by Monday noon. It was overall the sixth “very poor” air day this month.
On Monday, no station was in the “severe” range, however, 26 out of 38 active ambient air quality stations were in the “very poor” category. The worst impacted station was Anand Vihar, with a reading at 389.
As per the CPCB, an AQI of 51 to 100 is classified as “satisfactory”, between 101 and 200 is “moderate”, 201 to 300 is “poor”, 301 to 400 is “very poor”, and over 400 is “severe”.
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Despite the server issue, hourly readings for all eight pollutants used to calculate the AQI — including PM10, PM2.5, NO2, SO2, CO, O3, NH3, and Pb — were available on the Delhi Pollution Control Committee’s (DPCC) website, indicating that data was still being gathered.
Similar glitches have been witnessed in recent times too. On January 1, data for AQI stations across Delhi-NCR was unavailable due to a server issue. On November 14, 2023, data for several hours was only available for nine out of the 40 stations, with DPCC’s stations not being able to share or transmit data to the CPCB.
On October 31, 2022, data was not updated for over 11 hours due to a similar glitch. Data on CPCB’s app remained stuck between 5am and 4pm, however, the day’s national bulletin was released that day.
Forecasts by the Centre’s Air Quality Early Warning System (EWS) for Delhi shows that the air quality may improve to “poor” on Tuesday, and remain in the range till at least Thursday as an increase in wind speed and possible rain may aide in dispersion of pollutants.
