Delhi Air on Tuesday: Anand Vihar AQI 278 ‘Poor’, GRAP Stage II Curbs In Force, Court Opens Green-Cracker Window for Diwali
Anand Vihar recorded AQI 278 'Poor' on Tuesday morning while Delhi overall hit 332 'Very Poor' under GRAP Stage II. The Supreme Court allows certified green crackers only on Nov 7-8 in set hours.
Delhi woke up on Tuesday to two contradictory signals: the air is officially in emergency-curb territory, yet the Supreme Court has just opened a narrow, tightly conditioned window for green firecrackers on Diwali. Anand Vihar recorded an AQI of 278, in the “Poor” category, on Tuesday morning — while the city’s overall reading a day earlier had already crossed into “Very Poor” and triggered Stage II of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP).
Highlights
- Tuesday morning: Anand Vihar AQI 278, “Poor”, per the CPCB; Delhi overall was 332 at 5 am, “Very Poor”.
- GRAP Stage II is now in force across Delhi-NCR after the city AQI rose 117 → 261 → 324 over 31 October–2 November.
- Supreme Court: certified green crackers only, 6–7 am and 8–10 pm on 7 and 8 November; sales 4–6 November at designated spots, no online sales; full ban returns 9 November.
- The court says it lacks the data to judge whether the complete ban worked — and has ordered CPCB and the states to collect it this time, by 14 December.
Tuesday morning: Poor at Anand Vihar, Very Poor for the city
The Air Quality Index around Anand Vihar was 278, categorised as “Poor”, on Tuesday morning, according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) News9live reported at 07:25 IST on 3 November. The citywide picture was worse: Delhi recorded an overall AQI of 332 at 5 am on Tuesday, in the “Very Poor” category, with Noida at 310 “Very Poor” and Ghaziabad at 262 and Gurugram at 278, both “Poor” Times Now reported on 3 November. Station readings move through the day, which is why a single station can sit in “Poor” while the city average is “Very Poor” — both numbers above are CPCB readings from the same morning.
GRAP Stage II: what the curbs actually do
The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) moved the whole NCR to GRAP Stage II “with immediate effect” on 2 November, saying Delhi’s AQI had gone from 117 on 31 October to 261 on 1 November and 324 on 2 November “owing to unfavourable meteorological conditions”, with IMD and IITM forecasts keeping it “very poor” in the coming days Transclew reported on 2 November, reading the CAQM order in full. Stage II applies when AQI is between 301 and 400, and it adds to — not replaces — Stage I, in force since 21 October.
New at Stage II: higher parking fees to discourage private vehicles, staggered hours for public offices and municipal bodies in Delhi, Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddha Nagar, electric heaters for guards and sanitation staff so waste is not burned for warmth, and daily mechanical sweeping and water sprinkling of busy roads according to the CAQM schedule summarised by Transclew. These curbs sit on top of the vehicle rules Titans Infos explained in Delhi’s new pollution rules from 1 November and which vehicles are barred at the border — including the rule that inter-state buses entering Delhi-NCR must be electric, CNG or BS-VI diesel.
The court’s green-cracker window — and its conditions
The Supreme Court’s order, signed on 29 October by Justices M. M. Sundresh and Prasanna B. Varale and released on 2 November, allows only green crackers certified by CSIR-NEERI and listed on its website, burst only between 6 and 7 am and between 8 and 10 pm on 7 and 8 November — the eve of Diwali and Diwali itself The Indian Express reported on 2 November. The court directed:
“(the) authorities shall ensure that bursting of firecrackers is allowed only between 6 am and 7 am, and 8 pm and 10 pm on November 7 and 8.”
It also underlined:
“the complete ban on the firecrackers, as imposed earlier, shall be restored with effect from November 9.”
Sales run only from 4 to 6 November, by traders whose cancelled licences are temporarily restored, at spots chosen by the district collector and police, with no online sales; crackers with barium and series “ladis” are banned; every box must carry a batch QR code; and nothing may be burst within 300 metres of hospitals, nursing homes, health centres, old-age homes, schools or notified silence zones, which are to be marked as “No-Cracker Zones” Transclew reported from the order text.
Why the court relaxed a ban it cannot yet judge
The judges were candid about the missing evidence. The order records that the court “has not been furnished with adequate data as to whether the complete ban on firecrackers imposed in 2024 in Delhi-NCR has served its purpose, particularly, since there has been no significant improvement in the AQI readings” as quoted by The Indian Express. This time the court has named who must collect the data: the CPCB and state boards must report daily air quality from 2 to 30 November, every NCR state must file hospital-admission figures, and everything is due by 14 December, with the case listed again on 16 December Transclew reported.
For Delhi residents, the practical week looks like this: GRAP-II curbs now, a three-day licensed sales window from Wednesday, three hours a day of permitted green crackers on 7–8 November, and the full ban back on 9 November — while the same border and vehicle restrictions covered in the 1 November GRAP vehicle rules explainer stay in force throughout. Whether the cracker window worsens the post-Diwali spike is exactly what the court’s new data order is meant to settle.
