Green crackers or not, Diwali fireworks choke Delhi day after, 'severe' AQI over 400 recorded at some places

New Delhi: Residents of Delhi and other cities in the National Capital Region woke up on Tuesday under a grey sky with air quality in the “very poor” category as bursting of firecrackers continued past midnight on Diwali in a clear violation of the timeline set by the Supreme Court.

A closer look at the level of PM2.5 – the most dangerous polluting particles in air – shows that Diwali 2025 is the worst one in the last five years as the average PM2.5 level was 488 microgram per cubic metre – a three-fold increase from the pre-festival days.

“This year’s Diwali has proven to be even worse than before the data clearly shows a sharp rise in pollution levels. The spike between the nights of the 19th and 20th directly corresponds to the widespread use of firecrackers across Delhi-NCR.” said Palal Balyan, Research Lead at Climate Trend, a policy think tank that analysed the PM-2.5 data taken from CPCB.

“Moreover, visuals and ground data confirm that burning so-called ‘green’ crackers made no measurable difference compared to regular ones.”

According to the Central Pollution Control Board’s own air quality index, Delhi AQI stands at 351 at 6 PM on Tuesday signifying its extremely poor air quality that can have adverse health impacts. It's the same story in nearby Noida, Gurugram, Ghaziabad and Faridabad. A few monitoring stations in Delhi recorded an AQI of more than 400 signifying “severe” air pollution.

With the Supreme Court allowing bursting of green firecrackers in Delhi NCR for two hours on Diwali nights, the sale of crackers and fireworks went through the roof with a trading body claiming a sale of over Rs 500 crore in the festive season.

"Even a day before Diwali, most traders had run out of stock. Many people had to travel to Gurugram, Noida, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Sonipat to purchase crackers. The overall firecrackers sale in Delhi was around Rs 500 crore," said Brijesh Goyal, chairman, Chamber of Trade and Industry. Paramjit Singh Pamma, president of the Sadar Bazar Association, said traders witnessed nearly 40% higher sales this year compared to last year.

Though the Supreme Court permission came with conditions like selling of only green crackers with 30% less pollution and approved by CSIR’s National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, and bursting of crackers within a specific two-hour window period in the evening; none were followed in most of the localities across NCR with very little monitoring by the authorities.

As a consequence, the air pollution level spiked sharply in Delhi – known as the capital with world’s worst air quality – as well as its satellite cities like Gurugram (AQI: 370), Ghaziabad (324) and Noida (320).

Of the total 38 monitoring stations, 35 were in the 'red zone', indicating 'very poor' to 'severe' air quality. As many as 31 were in the 'very poor' category whereas four were in the 'severe' category, according to the CPCB's SAMEER app, which provides real-time AQI data from monitoring stations.

“It is most likely that the high concentration of PM 2.5 is due to local emission of firecrackers in the different parts of the city on this Diwali night,” said S K Dhaka, professor, Rajdhani College, University of Delhi.

Previously multiple studies have shown how India’s poor quality air is linked to millions of untimely deaths and residents of Delhi NCR are the worst victims.

One such research published in August showed exposure to high levels of poisonous air cuts the average life expectancy of Indians by 3.5 years. For the extremely polluting national capital, it means loss of 8.2 years of life for each resident of Delhi.