Air quality on Bhogi worsens across Chennai, yet not as bad as Delhi

CHENNAI: Bhogi burnings worsened air quality across the city with Perungudi zone, which has the dumpyard, the worst hit with an AQI of 273. Valasaravakkam recorded an AQI of 207. Particulate matter 2.5 and 10, which were the prominent pollutants, nearly tripled in these localities. All other city zones logged moderate AQI. Bad, though not as bad as Delhi, which recorded a very poor AQI of 350-plus across all monitoring stations.

Compared to Bhogi last year, when rain washed out pollutants and brought AQI down to 99, this year, Chennai’s average air quality slipped to a moderate AQI of 188.5.





Moderate AQI can cause breathing discomfort to people with lung disease, asthma or heart disease.

Visibility at locations such as the airport was only 300metres between 7am and 8.30am, disrupting flight operations when wind speeds dropped to 5.5kmph. Visibility improved gradually later.

TNPCB chairperson M Jayanthi said the agency’s officials went on night patrol in and around Chennai with the help of police.

“In some areas, people continued to burn items despite awareness drives. The mindset of the people should change, and they should stop burning tyres and old clothes on Bhogi,” she said.

Environmentalists’ comparisons with Delhi are misplaced. “While Delhi is worse, we (Chennai) are equally poor. Moreover, there is no transparency in the manual sampling data. The govt should increase the number of real-time monitoring stations for the public to track data regularly,” said M Vetriselvan, member, Poovulagin Nanbargal.

TNPCB assessed the air quality for 24 hours manually through 15 stations, covering all 15 zones in the city. The pre-Bhogi assessment was carried out from 8am on Jan 10 to 8am on Jan 11. The Bhogi day assessment was carried out from 8am on Jan 13 to 8am on Jan 14 (Wednesday).