Ever after the completion of festive season and onset of winters, the degrading Air Quality in Punjab and its neighbouring states remains a matter of concern. While Delhi is said to be choking for past many days, multiple districts of Punjab including Jalandhar, Amritsar are also witnessing poor AQI.
The seriousness of poor AQI in Punjab can be understood by the fact that Punjab Health Department on Thursday issued an advisory cautioning people from the poor level of air quality.
Since you have landed on this page, True Scoop assumes that you are wondering how to check official AQI of India? To know the answer continue reading below-
You all must be having weather apps on your phones that tells the current AQI. However, the official AQI that gets published the next day in the news paper are most of the different. Now, where to check the official AQI of Punjab and other parts of India?
The answer is Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) of Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. To check the official AQI of India including Punjab, you can visit CPCB's official website.
After you visit CPCB's official website, visit the National Air Quality Index web page. Below is how the web page will flash-
Then click on to National Air Quality Index (NAQI). After you click NAQI, a message will be flashed that will say 'This link will take you to an external website. We are not responsible for their content.'
Click ok and wait for a few minutes.
Another window will pop up and then you have to verify that you are not a machine by entering the code that are flashed on the screen.
By default, the NAQI page will showcase Delhi's AQI. If you are living in Delhi, you can change the city as per you location.
There are similar steps for people living in Punjab as well.
Select Punjab in the city section, then choose city as per you location.
Thereafter, you can also choose weather station.
Once all steps are followed, CPCB will display official AQI of your city/district.
It is pertinent to mention here that CPCB keeps on updating the AQI time to time (mostly on 2 hours interval).
As per CPCB's data at 1 pm, below is how the AQI looked like in different cities of Punjab-
Mandi Gobindgarh- 213 (poor)
Amritsar- 125 (moderate)
Bathinda- 203 (poor)
Jalandhar- 184 (moderate)
Khanna- 177 (moderate)
Ludhiana- 146 (moderate)
Patiala- 149 (moderate)