समाचार Samāchār · India · 7 November 2026

Delhi reaches Diwali at AQI 369. The forecast says severe. The fixes are known

Sixteen of 59 stations were already in the severe band on Saturday. The early warning system expects severe air on 8 and 9 November.

Delhi goes into Diwali with its air already close to the severe line. The city’s average AQI was 369 on Saturday, in the very poor band. It was 382 on Friday. Of the 59 monitoring stations with data, 16 were severe and 29 very poor. The worst reading was 452, near IIT Delhi. The Air Quality Early Warning System for Delhi expects severe air on Sunday and Monday, 8 and 9 November. The six days after that are expected to swing between severe and very poor.

The sources are measured. The Decision Support System for Delhi put transport as the largest contributor on Saturday at 21.4%. Stubble smoke was 1.7%, forecast to rise to 5.4% on Sunday. The CREAMS laboratory of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute counted 589 farm fires across six states on Friday. Punjab had 357 and Madhya Pradesh 139. The count from 15 September to 6 November is 6,226. Still air traps the rest. PM10 was the main pollutant.

The pattern repeats. In 2021 the AQI on the day after Diwali was 462. In 2025 it was 351. On Saturday morning IQAir ranked Delhi first among the world’s major cities. Its scale differs from India’s official index, so the numbers do not compare directly. The ranking still travels.

This is a prevention problem, not a hospital problem. Each severe day costs workdays, school days and lungs. The levers are known. Cleaner transport. Paid alternatives to burning crop residue. Dust control on construction sites. Credit to the scientists who run the forecasts and the satellite fire counts. The data now arrives days early. The अनुभव Anubhav of every November is that action must arrive as early as the data.

What a founder takes from it: Clean air is economic infrastructure. A city that loses a week of breathable air every November loses output, talent and health. Founders in clean mobility, crop residue markets and air monitoring are solving a problem that returns every year.