Noida’s air quality improves but still ‘poor’, likely to turn ‘severe’ on Diwali

Noida: City recorded the 15th ‘poor' air day of the month on Tuesday although AQI improved marginally from 248 a day earlier to 213, both in the ‘poor' category.The relief might be short-lived as AQI is likely to deteriorate again to ‘very poor' on Wednesday and could even worsen to ‘severe' on Thursday (Diwali) and Friday if firecrackers are burst and emissions from stubble burning increase.Delhi, Ghaziabad and Greater Noida also got a brief respite as winds helped in the dispersion of pollutants. In the capital, AQI was recorded at 268, compared to 304 in ‘very poor' category on Monday.Ghaziabad recorded an AQI of 231, down from 228 a day ago. In Greater Noida, AQI was 213 on the day, compared to Monday's 233.Last year too, Delhi-NCR recorded poor air two days before Diwali — Noida's AQI was at 247, Greater Noida's 272 and Ghaziabad's 267, all in the poor category. Air quality improved to moderate on Diwali due to light rainfall but slipped to severe levels a day later with Noida's AQI touching hazardous levels at 363.Greater Noida Authority's pollution department, meanwhile, imposed hefty fines of nearly Rs 13 lakh each on two residential societies — Supertech Eco Village 1 and 2 —after residents flagged unregulated use of diesel generator (DG) sets on X."We received the complaints that the DG sets used by the two societies were non-compliant with GRAP stage 2 guidelines and issued a fine of Rs 13.8 lakh against Eco Village 1 and Rs 13.5 lakh on Eco Village 2 for air pollution," UPPCB regional officer (Greater Noida) DK Gupta said.Under Stage 2 of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), implemented across Delhi-NCR earlier this month, DG sets not working in a dual-fuel mode, solely due to the non-availability of gas infrastructure, will be permitted only for emergency services, such as elevators and lifts. There are no restrictions on DG sets running on LPG, natural gas, biogas, propane and butane among others. Alok Rastogi, a resident of Supertech Eco Village 1, said the developer engaged a private company for the maintenance of the society. "We urged them multiple times to upgrade the DG sets to permitted fuel, but they repeatedly ignored our concerns. DG sets are used in the society in case of an outage," he said.Raj Kumar, a resident of Supertech Eco Village 2, said the project was in the National Company Law Tribunal in an insolvency case. "The developer has not upgraded the DG sets due to which it received a penalty," he said. Supertech Limited did not comment on the issue.There are approximately 400 high-rise residential buildings in Noida, Greater Noida, and Greater Noida West. These buildings collectively use nearly 1,000-1,200 DG sets. UP Pollution Control Department does not currently have clear data on how many of these buildings have transitioned to approved fuels. MSID:: 114736446 413 |