Mumbai’s air quality deteriorated sharply on Saturday, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) touching 322 in the ‘very poor’ category, triggering widespread health complaints among residents.<\/p>\n
In a rare contrast, Delhi recorded a moderate AQI of 176 — its best reading for October 24 in the last ten years — following aggressive anti-pollution measures.<\/p>\n
According to air quality monitoring data, Mumbai’s pollution levels were driven by a combination of construction dust, sluggish wind speed, garbage burning, emissions from crop fires in surrounding regions, and residual smoke from firecrackers.<\/p>\n
The thick haze blanketing the city led to a rise in cases of headache, sore throat, and eye irritation, with doctors advising vulnerable groups, including children and the elderly, to limit outdoor exposure.<\/p>\n
Civic officials in Mumbai acknowledged the sudden spike and said multiple factors had converged to push the air quality into the hazardous zone.<\/p>\n
The Bombay High Court, taking note of the worsening situation, has declared an emergency and directed authorities to intensify enforcement against polluting activities.<\/p>\n
Environmental activists and citizens have called for stricter monitoring of construction sites, a complete ban on open garbage burning, and better coordination to control regional emissions.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Delhi presented a contrasting picture.<\/p>\n
The national capital’s AQI of 176 placed it in the moderate category, a significant improvement compared to previous years when early winter pollution usually begins to intensify around this date.<\/p>\n
Officials attributed the cleaner air to sustained efforts launched in ‘war mode’, including continuous road sweeping, removal of construction and municipal waste, and extensive water sprinkling on roads and dust-prone areas.<\/p>\n
Delhi’s environment department said the coordinated action by civic agencies and the use of technology to identify pollution hotspots had helped keep particulate levels under control.<\/p>\n
However, authorities cautioned that the situation could change with the onset of winter and farm stubble burning in neighbouring states.<\/p>\n
Experts noted that while Delhi’s temporary improvement offers a positive signal, Mumbai’s sudden decline underscores the need for year-round pollution control strategies in coastal cities that traditionally enjoyed better air quality.<\/p>\n
Both cities continue to face public pressure for stronger and more consistent enforcement of environmental norms.<\/p>\n
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mumbai’s air quality deteriorated sharply on Saturday, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) touching 322 in the ‘very…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":894035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[131288,192,374878,170996,79],"class_list":["post-894034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-delhi-air-quality","tag-environment","tag-mumbai-air-quality","tag-pollution-control","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/894035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}