Noida: A dense layer of smog engulfed Noida as AQI slipped back to the ‘very poor’ category on Wednesday at 330. Residents complained of eye irritation, a runny nose and a cough. Ghaziabad’s average AQI was recorded at 257 (poor) and Greater Noida was at 309 (very poor).Commuters travelling from Greater Noida West in the morning said they struggled because of poor visibility. A resident of the area, Manish Gupta, commutes to Delta-1 on his bike daily. “When I reach office every day, I find a thick layer of dust on my clothes,” he said. “I can’t get rid of the irritation in my eyes and they are always watery.”PM2.5 was the dominant pollutant at all 18 monitoring stations in NCR cities on Wednesday. High or chronic exposure to this fine particulate matter, which can enter the bloodstream, is linked to asthma, reduced lung function, heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer and premature mortality. Environmentalists claim that though there has been no reduction in dust concentration, with increasing vehicular emissions and trapping of the air due to plummeting temperature, PM2.5 has started dominating the pollution levels.The Sector 62 monitoring station covers adjacent industrial and corporate zones and nearby stretches along NH-9 and Delhi-Meerut Expressway. On Tuesday, the reading at 4 pm was 411, but within 24 hours the air quality deteriorated further. The reading at 4 pm on Wednesday was 427. Four other monitoring stations — Sector 39, Sector 110, Sector 116 and Sector 150 — had ‘very poor’ air quality above the 300 mark. Two more monitoring stations — Sector 1 and Sector 125 — remained just under the 300 mark in the ‘poor’ category, recording 294 and 296, respectively.Knowledge Park V in Greater Noida remained the most polluted region with an AQI of 375, while the two other areas — Knowledge City III and Shiv Nadar University — remained in the ‘poor’ category with an AQI of 272 and 281, respectively.Ghaziabad once again remained better than the other two cities with a pollution level of 257, where three areas — Wave City, Indirapuram and Sanjay Nagar — remained in the ‘very poor’ category, recording an AQI above the 300 mark. The worst air was breathed in Sanjay Nagar with an AQI of 353. Govindpuram monitoring station in the green belt once again recorded cleaner air quality with an AQI of 149, followed by Vasundhara with 185.The maximum at Safdarjung was 29.8 degrees Celsius, 0.7 degrees below normal. The minimum was 16.1 degrees Celsius, 0.8 degrees above normal. IMD expects the maximum temperature to hover between 27 and 29 degrees Celsius and the minimum temperature between 14 and 16 degrees Celsius on Thursday. Met experts believe that as the morning temperature dips, the concentration of particulate matter increases, making the air quality worse.
