The air quality has been hovering around "severe" in the last 10 days. Doctors are advising people to stay indoors during early morning hours.
Do you keep hitting the snooze button on your alarm every morning because you cannot bring yourself to rise and shine on the walking tracks in your neighbourhood park? Well, this could actually be the season when you needn’t be guilty about missing your outdoor morning fitness regime.
For the morning air is far from fresh. On the contrary, it is toxic. In view of this fact, the number of morning walkers or joggers in Noida has substantially declined these days. Respiratory diseases, too, have spiralled. According to the district health department of GB Nagar, there has been a 40 per cent increase in heart and lung diseases after Dusshera.
Ditching their morning walks and jogs, residents of Noida are increasingly switching to indoor exercises and yoga.
So how bad are the air-pollution levels? Apparently the air quality is marked "severe" if the pollution index is above 400. On October 29, it stood at an alarming 526. It has been hovering between "very poor", which means any figure between 301 to 400, and "severe" in the last 10 days.
Narender Mahajan, a resident of Jalvayu Vihar of Sector 25, told City Spidey that he chooses to postpone his early morning walk these days. “I go for my morning walk after 8 am. Some of my friends are avoiding morning walks entirely and heading to the gym. Some others are engaging in indoor exercises,” he added.
Dr Anurag Bhargava, chief medical officer of GB Nagar, informed City Spidey that during this season patients with high blood pressure should ideally live indoors and never step out between 4 am and 8 am. “Pollution levels are the highest in the early morning hours because of the sluggish movement of the winds. So dust and other particles get trapped in the air,” he explained, adding, “smoke emanating from vehicles, which courses through the airscape of the city, aggravates pollution.”
Dr Rani Kumar, former dean of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), said that morning walkers and children heading to school are two categories of people who are most exposed to the toxic smog that prevails the atmosphere now.
“When the temperature is low, pollutants get trapped closer to the ground. Therefore, there is high concentration of pollutants in the air that we breathe in the early morning hours. Now, strenuous activity during this time leads people to inhale greater volumes of minute pollutants. These pollutants get lodged in the lungs. People should, therefore, use masks when they come out from their homes,” explained Kumar.
So how are the authorities tackling the problem? Recently, Dr Bhure Lal, chairman of the Supreme Court appointed Environment Pollution Prevention and Control Authority, or EPCA, asked Noida Authority to crack down on builders flouting environment norms. His letter to the Uttar Pradesh chief secretary on Monday instructed concerned authorities to fix all dug up roads and unpaved stretches to reduce air pollution.
“The Noida Authority has the onus of keeping roads and other public spaces dust-free. Therefore, we have decided to write to them, urging them to take necessary to mitigate air pollution,” added BB Awasthi, regional officer of UP Pollution Control Board.
