The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) revoked Grap Stage 3 restrictions on Wednesday at an Air Quality Index of 327 -- still firmly in the 'very poor' category and amid mounting public frustration -- allowing construction activities and older diesel vehicles back on roads during the Capital's 21st consecutive day of hazardous air.
The decision on repealing the third of the graded response action plan (Grap) level of curbs came despite forecasts indicating air quality will remain 'very poor' through the coming days and just a week after the Supreme Court encouraged the commission to take "proactive action" in making pollution control measures more stringent.
Delhi's 24-hour average AQI stood at 327 at 4pm on Wednesday when the Central Pollution Control Board (CBCP) releases its daily national bulletin. While marginally better than Tuesday's 353 and Monday's 382, the reading marks the 21st straight day of AQI above 300 -- tying for the fifth-longest pollution streak since monitoring began in April 2015.
The CBCP classifies air between 301-400 as 'very poor', a level that causes respiratory discomfort to most people on prolonged exposure - a fact that was also noted at the Supreme Court on Wednesday when the Chief Justice and senior lawyers narrated their own experiences with breathing difficulties.
CAQM's order didn't adequately explain the rationale behind its move. It seemed to suggest that the marginal improvement in AQI, and the fact that its new more stringent Grap norms announced on November 21, warranted a move to a lower Grap category, despite forecasts that showed that the AQI will continue to be 'very poor'.
"The AQI of Delhi has been improving since the last three days and has been recorded at 327 today. Further, the forecast by the IMD and Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology predicts AQI to remain in the 'very poor' category in the coming days," the CAQM sub-committee stated, announcing the revocation of Stage 3 measures imposed November 11.
Mukesh Khare, an air pollution expert from IIT Delhi, said the decision to remove Stage 3 measures was taken too early and too quickly. "We know temperatures are dipping and the AQI keeps fluctuating at this time of the year. November, December and January are crucial months and we should not jump the gun during such months, unless there is rain and considerable improvement," he said.
"There is not much difference between an AQI of 320 or an AQI of 350. We cannot normalise slightly lower values and this decision feels illogical."
The timing laid bare a disconnect between science and data, the commission's approach, and citizen demands. Hours before CAQM's decision, the East Delhi Federation of Residents' Welfare Associations Joint Front called existing stages "ineffective" and demanded even stricter measures.
"As things stand, we need stages 5 and 6 of Grap to be formulated, which have stringent measures. The AQI keeps fluctuating and therefore there is a need for an action plan for this," said BS Vohra, the federation president. The group proposed prohibiting non-essential public movement, allowing markets to function only on alternate days, and making public transport free temporarily.
The revocation allows private construction and demolition, mining and allied activities to resume across NCR. Restrictions on BS-III petrol and BS-IV diesel light motor vehicles have been lifted with immediate effect. Schools no longer need to operate in hybrid mode, and the requirement for offices to function at 50% capacity with work-from-home arrangements has ended.
The office restriction had been in place for just three days -- implemented by the Delhi government on Monday -- following CAQM's November 21 revision of Grap that shifted several emergency measures to lower thresholds. The revised framework moved some Stage 4 measures to Stage 3, Stage 3 measures to Stage 2, and Stage 2 measures to Stage 1.
"Under this, the 50% Work From Home arrangement in offices has been discontinued, and the hybrid mode currently running in schools has also been shut down," Delhi environment minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa announced Wednesday evening.
The Supreme Court on November 19 had endorsed CAQM's plan to make Grap more proactive. "We are of the view that any proactive action in reducing air pollution would always be welcome. We expect the CAQM, while taking such action, to consult all stakeholders," a bench of then Chief Justice of India Bhushan R Gavai and justice K Vinod Chandran stated.
But even those measures helped precious little. Meteorological experts said the marginal improvement was due to variable wind direction -- which reduced stubble smoke intrusion -- and wind speeds between 5-10 km/hr that allowed slight dispersion of pollutants.
And Wednesday's decision by CAQM highlights the futility of such redefinitions in the face of absence of executive will to tackle Delhi's bad air. Tightening Grap measures, and then moving to a lower category despite the air continuing to be very polluted makes little sense.
All of this comes even as the reliability of Delhi's monitoring network itself has been questioned this season. HT has reported how missing station data has followed a pattern, with more gaps occurred during polluted hours than clean ones, a trend that would systematically understate air quality problems. The questions around data sanctity began since Diwali, when several stations went blank at critical hours, and has since been marked by outages, including an unexplained blackout on November 10 when the monitoring system went dark for most of the day.
Environmental activist Vimlendu Jha was scathing in his assessment. "While the AQI levels of entire Delhi, despite sprinkling of water on the monitors, is in the 'severe' category at many stations, it has decided to pull off even the band-aid called Grap," Jha said on X, calling for CAQM to be "dismantled."
Sunil Dahiya, founder and lead analyst at Envirocatalysts, said while activities cannot be suspended indefinitely, current pollution levels are by no means breathable. "Actions on key or highly polluting point-sources should still be taken beyond Grap stages. This will reduce emissions at source and send a strict signal to highly polluting sources that business as usual won't work -- they will either need to shift to cleaner energy or have the most efficient pollution control facilities, otherwise losses due to shutdowns will keep mounting, making them unprofitable in the long run."
Even as restrictions were being lifted, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav chaired a high-level review meeting to discuss plantation efforts for greening the Delhi-NCR region. Yadav directed states to prepare five-year greening plans, consolidating district-wise micro plans.
"Based on this integrated plan, coordinated actions will be initiated for ensuring necessary facilitation which would, amongst other benefits also support in the fulfilment of the greening plantation efforts being monitored by the Commission for Air Quality Management," Yadav said.
The micro-level greening plans require NCR states to undertake district-wise planning including identification of forest areas, protected areas, community forests, degraded lands, and catchment areas of rivers.