New Delhi: As air pollution rose in Delhi on Diwali night due to firecracker smoke, data from several key air quality monitoring stations suddenly stopped appearing online. Pollution levels were rising rapidly in many parts of the capital, but the interruption in real-time monitoring at the same time raised questions about the actual state of air quality.
According to the report, after around 9 pm, data was not available from several monitoring centres, including RK Puram, Nehru Nagar, Mundka, Sonia Vihar and Dwarka. At the RK Puram station, the PM2.5 level was recorded at 504 micrograms per cubic metre at 8 pm, rising to 924 micrograms per cubic metre by 9 pm. After that, data from the station stopped appearing.
At the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) monitoring centre, however, pollution levels continued to rise. The PM2.5 level there was 161 micrograms per cubic metre at 8 pm, increasing to 786 micrograms per cubic metre by 11 pm. This indicated that the impact of firecracker smoke was spreading rapidly even to areas where pollution is generally relatively lower.
According to experts, the disappearance of data from monitoring centres could be due to reasons such as equipment malfunction, power supply issues, sensor problems or technical obstacles in transmitting data to the server. However, there has been no official confirmation of the actual reason for the data interruption this time.
According to Delhi’s official AQI portal, stations from which readings are not received in the previous two hours are excluded from the calculation of the average AQI for that period. In such a situation, the lack of data can become an obstacle in understanding the real local pollution situation.
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