Independent perspective.
A slightly curious mind.SearchAbout us
INDIA EDITION
National

Delhi AQI hits 483 on Diwali after worst festival-eve air in 10 years

Delhi’s overall AQI reached 483 on Diwali morning after the capital recorded its worst pre-Diwali air in 10 years, with several stations in the severe category.

The Indian Idiot Desk

2 min read4 sources
A pale building and cars almost disappear into thick grey smog on a New Delhi street, with tree branches hanging in the foreground.
Photograph. · Archival photograph: thick smog on a New Delhi street on 31 December 2017, with a rest house barely visible through the haze. Not Diwali 2026. · Credit: Sumita Roy Dutta / Wikimedia Commons · Image source · License: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Changes: Cropped to a 3:2 frame and resized to 1200 × 800 pixels; JPEG recompressed. No other visual changes.

Delhi’s overall air quality index reached 483 at 8.10 am on Sunday, Diwali morning, placing the city in the Central Pollution Control Board’s “severe” category, according to CPCB data reported by ANI. That was a sharp rise from 364 at 8 am on Saturday, when the city sat in the “very poor” band.

The festival morning followed Delhi’s most polluted Diwali eve in a decade. The 4 pm AQI on Saturday was 369 — still “very poor” on CPCB’s 0-500 scale, and the highest reading for the day before Diwali since 2016, when it was 404, Hindustan Times reported. As The Indian Idiot reported earlier this week, the city’s index had already climbed near the severe mark, at 391, as the festival approached.

At least eight Delhi stations were in the severe category on Sunday morning, ANI figures showed: Punjabi Bagh 449, RK Puram 448, Bawana 446, IIT Delhi and Rohini 445 each, Patparganj 421, Chandni Chowk 420 and Alipur 413. On Saturday evening, after the Supreme Court-permitted firecracker window opened at 8 pm, HT’s analysis of CPCB’s 15-minute readings found citywide PM2.5 climbing from 177 micrograms per cubic metre at 7.45 pm to 289 at 10 pm.

HT said farm fires in Punjab and Haryana reached their highest count of the season on Saturday, winds fell calm after sunset, and light winds were forecast to continue through Sunday. The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology has forecast the AQI climbing through Sunday night to 406 by 4 am on Monday, into the severe category. “The next 48 hours look worse. Winds stay weak, and the forecasts already put Delhi at or near ‘severe’ for Diwali and the day after,” Sunil Dahiya, founder of the think-tank Envirocatalysts, told HT.

Stage III of the Graded Response Action Plan has been in force across Delhi-NCR since Friday. As The Indian Idiot explained then, that stage restricts older vehicles, pauses much non-essential construction and shifts younger schoolchildren towards hybrid classes. An AQI of 401-500 is classed as severe on the CPCB scale.

More to read

Behind the story

Read the sources and explore the context for yourself.

  1. New Indian Express / ANI: Delhi’s AQI plunges to 483 on Diwali morning (8 Nov 2026)newindianexpress.com
  2. Hindustan Times: Delhi breathes worst air on Diwali eve in 10 years (8 Nov 2026)hindustantimes.com
  3. The Indian Idiot: Delhi AQI near severe at 391 as Diwali approaches (6 Nov 2026)theindianidiot.com
  4. The Indian Idiot: Explained: What GRAP Stage 3 means for Delhi-NCR right now (6 Nov 2026)theindianidiot.com
More in NationalOur corrections policy