As residents of Delhi-National Capital Region continue to battle dense smog, the Aam Aadmi Party led Delhi government has decided to implement the odd-even car rationing scheme for five days- from November 13 to November 17.
There has not been any official statement confirmation yet but Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal retweeted a tweet of a news channel that reported that odd-even will be in place for these five days.
Kejriwal had earlier said that the decision on the implementation of the Odd-Even formula will depend on the seriousness of the condition in the city and adjoining area.
According to the earlier reports, the decision was expected after a meeting of government agencies and members of EPCA — A Supreme Court-mandated pollution monitoring body which was scheduled at 5 pm today.
“We have already seen two days of the severe category of pollution. If the AQI continues to remain in severe category even on Thursday, we will recommend the EPCA to roll out the odd-even policy,” Hindustan Times reported quoting A Sudhakar, member secretary of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) which is the country’s apex pollution monitoring body and acts as a feeder to the EPCA.
On Thursday, Delhi's air quality remained in the ‘severe’ category in several parts of the city. The visibility dipped also affected train movement with 41 trains reportedly arriving late and 10 cancelled so far.
On Wednesday, PM2.5 levels across all stations crossed the “severe plus” categories. In some stations such as Lodhi Road, Delhi University north campus and Mathura Road, the level of microfine particles rose to more than 20 times the safe limit.
According to reports, the air quality index (AQI) at 7.30 am on Thursday was recorded at 468, which was worse than Tuesday’s average AQI of 448.
However, MeT experts have predicted that the city can expect some respite from Friday onwards as the pollution may start dissipating owing to weather conditions.
With Agency Inputs
