New mechanism will forewarn depletion in air quality: Vardhan

New Delhi [India] Oct 15 (ANI): Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Harsh Vardhan on Monday informed that Indian scientists along with scientists of the US and Finland have developed a mechanism which will soon be able to forewarn depletion in air quality.
Speaking at the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Vardhan further elaborated that three institutions, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (Pune), IMD and meteorology centre in Noida, will work together on the air quality issue. These institutions will help to calculate, take measures and give a three-day prior warning about depleting air quality.
The air quality in Delhi has been on a fall in the past few days. According to the data released by the National Air Quality Index, the quality continued to remain between moderate and poor on Monday with a drop in airspeed.
Vardhan said, "We follow a 'Graded response action plan' under which various steps are taken keeping in mind the degree to which the air quality depletes. There are 40-45 action plans in it."
In past years with the help of the environment ministry, Air quality index (AQI) was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015. AQI uses around eight-ten parameters to judge the overall air quality which is then further graded as moderate, poor, good and so on.
Referring to previous air quality records, the minister said: "Last year the government allotted Rs 1,100 crore following depletion in the air quality. Out of this, Rs 500 crore has already been disbursed for the Delhi-Haryana region. PM10 (presence of particles with diameter less than 10mm) and PM2.5 (presence of particles with diameter less than 2.5 mm) levels have diminished as compared to previous years, and we have also kept a thorough check on stubble burning." (ANI)