AQI at 88, Delhi sees cleanest Oct air day

Delhi recorded its cleanest air day for October on Friday, with the air quality index (AQI) dropping to 88, placing it in the ‘satisfactory’ category.

This is the lowest AQI for any day in October in recent years. It comes amid a season typically associated with deteriorating air quality.

The development marks a key shift in the Capital’s air pollution trends, with Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa attributing the improvement to continuous on-ground environmental interventions. According to data shared by the government, two of the city’s major pollution hotspots — Narela (66) and Mundka (76) — also recorded AQI levels within the ‘satisfactory’ range.

“This is the result of consistent 24x7 environmental action, not chance,” Sirsa said during a press briefing. He noted that the city’s performance was due to coordinated efforts involving dust control, mechanised road sweeping and bio-mining of legacy waste.

In the past 24 hours, municipal teams reportedly removed 10,869 metric tonnes (MT) of garbage, swept 6,265 km of roads, lifted 2,171 MT of construction and demolition waste, and bio-mined 8,894 MT of legacy waste. The bio-mining included 3,839 MT at Bhalaswa, 2,547 MT at Okhla and 2,508 MT at Ghazipur landfill sites.

So far in 2025, Delhi has recorded 190 clean air days — the highest between January and early October in nearly a decade. The government stated that this puts the city on course to potentially exceed the 227 clean air days logged in 2020, a year marked by Covid-19 lockdowns. Measures, he cited, include mandatory anti-smog guns on large construction sites, real-time centralised monitoring, timely garbage collection and expansion of green cover.

The minister said Delhi’s air quality improvements are no longer solely dependent on weather changes. “The clean air we are seeing today is a consequence of policy, enforcement and teamwork,” he said.