As winter approaches, Mumbai’s air quality index (AQI) remained in “poor” category for second consecutive day on Thursday, November 10.
According to the System of Air Quality Forecast and Research (SAFAR) readings, the AQI of the city was 273 today.
Mumbai’s Mazgaon area in the western suburbs recorded the worst AQI of 350, followed by Malad with 262 and Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) with 242. The AQI of Chembur is 228, followed by 249 in Colaba. Both Andheri and Borivali’s AQI readings were 221 and 245, respectively.
Meanwhile, Worli had an AQI of 118 followed by Bhandup with an AQI of 142.
After staying in the ‘moderate’ category for the past two weeks, the air quality dropped to ‘poor’ for the first time on Wednesday, November 9, at 215.
Experts have attributed the drop in Air Quality Index (AQI) of Mumbai to current weather conditions.
According to the AQI monitoring chart, an AQI between 0-50 is termed as ‘good’, between 51-100 is termed ‘satisfactory’, 101-200 is termed ‘moderate’, 201-300 is termed ‘poor’, 301-400 is termed ‘very poor’ and beyond 400, AQI is labelled as ‘severe’. Bhandup in the eastern suburbs had the cleanest AQI of 90, followed by 104 in Worli.
In the previous week, Mumbai’s AQI was in the ‘moderate’ category and earlier on November 6 (Sunday), the city’s AQI was 128, which is labelled as ‘moderate’.