Amid the ongoing war of words between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government and the Centre over the worsening air quality in the national capital, blamed largely on the burning of farm residue or stubble in neighbouring Punjab and Haryana, Trinamool Congress MP Sushmita Dev has opened up on the situation.
In a tweet, the Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP, who was formerly with the Congress, said even as the political parties bicker and the blame game rages on, citizens continue to inhale the toxic Delhi air, clueless on whether there will ever be a way out of the grim situation. “The air pollution in Delhi is a real challenge…While the blame game goes on unabated, we are inhaling this air not knowing what is the solution. Scary!” the TMC MP tweeted.
With the AAP-ruled Punjab copping flak over an alleged spike in incidents of farm fire or stubble burning this year, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann held a joint presser along with his Delhi counterpart and party convener Arvind Kejriwal. Calling the stubble burning situation a ‘North Indian problem’, Kejriwal, while refusing to blame farmers, called on the central government to find a sustainable solution to the problem.
Meanwhile, the air quality in the national capital continue to remain in the ‘severe’ category for the second straight day on Friday, with ‘SAFAR’ (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research) saying that stubble burning contributed to 34 per cent of Delhi’s PM 2.5 pollution.
The overall Air Quality Index (AQI) in the national capital jumped to 472 (severe) on Friday while Noida, which is part of the National Capital Region (NCR), recorded an AQI at a significantly hazardous 562. The AQI in Gurugram, too, stood at 539, in the severe category, as per data released by ‘SAFAR’.
Air Quality Index of 0 to 100 is considered ‘good’, 100 to 200 is considered ‘moderate’, 200 to 300 ‘poor’, 300 to 400 ‘very poor’ and 400 to 500 ‘severe’.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by HW News staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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