{"id":377597,"date":"2026-01-18T23:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T23:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/377597\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T23:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T23:00:15","slug":"grap-4-strictest-pollution-curbs-enforced-in-delhi-ncr-as-aqi-crosses-400-india-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/377597\/","title":{"rendered":"GRAP-4, strictest pollution curbs, enforced in Delhi-NCR as AQI crosses 400| India News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"content\">Stricter pollution curbs under Stage 4 of the Graded Response Action Plan have enforced in Delhi-NCR as the air quality entered \u201csevere\u201d category on Saturday evening, January 17. <\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Parade-0_1768663002011_1768663014475.jpg\" alt=\"Security contingents during Republic Day parade rehearsals amid winter fog and poor air quality in New Delhi on Saturday, January 17. (Arvind Yadav\/HT Photo)\" title=\"Security contingents during Republic Day parade rehearsals amid winter fog and poor air quality in New Delhi on Saturday, January 17. (Arvind Yadav\/HT Photo)\" width=\"360\" height=\"202\" loading=\"eager\"\/>Security contingents during Republic Day parade rehearsals amid winter fog and poor air quality in New Delhi on Saturday, January 17. (Arvind Yadav\/HT Photo)<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) took the decision a day after imposing GRAP Stage 3 restrictions. <\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">The 24-hour average Air Quality Index (AQI) in Delhi Saturday was recorded at 354, in the \u201cvery poor\u201d category, and it deteriorated to 416, \u201csevere\u201d, by 6 pm. Under the GRAP, air quality is categorised as poor (AQI 201-300), very poor (301-400), severe (401-450) and severe plus (above 450).<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">This comes at a time when the region is struggling with fog \u2014 which turns into smog due to the presence of smoke or particulate matter \u2014 and extreme winter chill. <\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">&#8220;Forecasts indicate that due to slow wind speed, stable atmosphere, unfavourable weather parameters and lack of dispersal of pollutants, Delhi&#8217;s average AQI is likely to breach the 400-mark and enter the severe category in the coming days,&#8221; a senior official had said on Friday, as per news agency PTI. Earlier, GRAP Stage 3 restrictions had been revoked on January 2 seeing some improvement in air quality, while Stages 1 and 2 remained in force, until things got worse again by Friday and today.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">In terms of the winter chill, the national capital on Saturday recorded a minimum temperature of 4.4 degrees Celsius, which was 3.2 notches below the season&#8217;s average, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">&#8220;Minimum temperatures are expected to begin rising gradually from January 17 to 20, with light winter rainfall activity likely over the next few days,&#8221; said Mahesh Palawat from Skymet Weather, a private weather forecasting agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">He added that another cold spell is forecast between January 23 and 26, when temperatures are expected to dip again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">Dense fog conditions prevailed on Saturday morning, though there was some rise in the maximum temperature at 24.6 degrees Celsius, five notches above normal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stricter pollution curbs under Stage 4 of the Graded Response Action Plan have enforced in Delhi-NCR as the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[17641,143568,143569,1397,143567,90,143570,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-377597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-air-quality","9":"tag-curbs","10":"tag-delhi-ncr","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-grap-4","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-severe-category","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}