Delhi shrouded in dense fog as visibility plunges to 100 m

A thick blanket of fog enveloped Delhi on Tuesday morning blurring skylines slowing traffic and sharply reducing visibility across several areasMinimum temperatures remain above seasonal averageThe minimum temperature was recorded at 94 degrees Celsius a notch above the normal for this time of the year according to official dataAmong stations Safdarjung recorded a minimum temperature of 94 degrees Celsius a notch above the seasons average Palam logged 86 degrees Celsius while Lodhi Road reported 96 degrees Celsius about two notches above the seasons averageThe Ridge station recorded 11 degrees Celsius three notches above normal and Ayanagar registered 103 degrees Celsius two notches above normalVisibility dropped to 100 metres at both Palam and Safdarjung the weather office saidAir quality slips into lsquopoorrsquo category across cityThe citys Air Quality Index AQI was clocked at 256 at 9 am placing it in the poor categoryStationwise data according to the Central Pollution Control Board CPCB showed air quality at 19 stations in the poor category 10 in very poor and 10 in moderateSeveral parts of the national capital experienced dense fog on Tuesday morning The Air Quality Index stood at 256 at 7 am placing air quality in the poor category according to the Central Pollution Control Board CPCBSeveral monitoring stations across the city reported AQI levels in the poortovery poor range Ashok Vihar stood at 287 Bawana reported an AQI of 239 Burari 234 and Chandni Chowk 324 Dwarka Sector 8 recorded 293 ITO 248 while Mundka recorded 297 and Wazirpur recorded 316Okhla Phase2 logged an AQI of 310 Rohini 281 Punjabi Bagh 295 and RK Puram 300 Lower readings were recorded in Narela 168 and Alipur 212 according to the CPCBAccording to the CPCB an AQI between zero and 50 is considered good 51 to 100 satisfactory 101 to 200 moderate 201 to 300 poor 301 to 400 very poor and 401 to 500 severeRahul Gandhi seeks parliamentary debate on air pollutionMeanwhile on Sunday the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi called for a parliamentary debate on air pollution and asked the government to ensure enough money in the Union Budget to tackle the issueIn a Facebook post Gandhi read messages from citizens and in a selfmade video he urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare air pollution a national health emergencyIn the selfmade video Lok Sabha LoP said It is about time the government allows a discussion in Parliament and the Prime Minister should declare pollution a national health emergency We need to come together and develop a serious plan We need to make sure there is enough money in the budget to tackle this problem