Bhubaneswar: Even as New Delhi topped charts on Friday as the world’s most polluted city with revellers defying a ban on firecrackers during Diwali celebrations the previous day, early morning showers came as a relief for Bhubaneswar, the capital city of Odisha.
The air quality index (AQI) in Bhubaneswar stood at 60-70 on Wednesday morning and increased to 230-24 by Thursday with people bursting firecrackers late into the evening. Intense spells of rain, however, brought the AQI down to 133 this morning. “Showers just after the Diwali Celebration is like ashirbaad as pollution in the air will get washed away by the rain……,” senior IMD scientist Umashankar Das posted on X, while informing about intense spells of rain over Cuttack, Bhubaneswar, Jajpur, Khurda, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapada and Bhadrak.
By noon, the AQI report of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) labelled the air pollution level in Bhubaneswar as moderate with a reading of 144 at Lingaraj Temple area and 113 at Patia.
In Cuttack city, which also witnessed rain this morning, the AQI was recorded satisfactory at 94.
Amid rising concerns over the deterioration of air quality during the festival of light, Odisha State Pollution Control Board had tightened norms and set a two-hour window to burst firecrackers. The permissible window to burst crackers was from 7 pm to 9 pm. Firecrackers creating noise more than 125 decibels were banned. There was also a restriction on bursting crackers near gardens, parks, or silence zones, such as areas comprising 100 metres around hospitals, educational institutions, courts, religious places, and other areas where general public gatherings take place. People were allowed to burst only “green firecrackers” in open areas.
Meanwhile in Delhi, the AQI was recorded in the ‘very poor’ category with a reading of 359 at 6.30 am and 362 at 9 am on Friday. It was 330 on Diwali, compared to 218 in 2023 and 312 in 2022, according to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data. The air quality in the national capital is likely to be in the “very poor” category (AQI 300 to 400) on Friday, NDTV reported, quoting the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune.
