Author: Anumita Roychowdhury

Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) experienced the season’s first severe smog episode during Diwali in October this year. Since then, the air quality trend has remained consistently high in the poor to very poor category of the air quality index. Pollution is rising even when the contribution of seasonal farm fires to Delhi’s air quality has stayed below 1-2 per cent. This signals an overpowering influence of local and regional sources of pollution that require urgent control. Every winter, when cool and calm weather conditions trap dangerous levels of air pollution close to the ground, policy discourse shifts…