New Delhi: A day after Delhi saw widespread light rain and gusty winds, the air quality improved to the satisfactory category on Monday morning, prompting Commission for Air Quality Management to revoke Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) completely from the region. The city’s air quality index (AQI) finally stood at 119 against Sunday’s 175, both in the moderate category. This was Delhi’s lowest AQI since Oct 9, 2025, when it was 99 (satisfactory). Stage 1 of GRAP is declared to deal with the poor category AQI. The last time Delhi had no GRAP in place was Oct 13 last year. At 11am on Monday, AQI was 97 (satisfactory), but it began to rise through the day as the sun came out. The lead pollutant was ozone (O3), a gas formed during high temperatures and under the reaction of sunlight. According to IMD and IITM, the average AQI of Delhi is likely to remain moderate until at least Thursday.CPCB data showed 34 out of the 44 air quality stations were in the moderate range of 101-200 at 4pm, while 10 stations were satisfactory (51-100). The lowest AQI was 70 at ITO, while the highest was 181 at Mandir Marg.Light rain is likely on all three days from Wednesday. “We can expect drizzle and gusty winds up to 40km/hour in places. A yellow alert is in place for Friday, with chances of at least two such spells of rain through the day,” an IMD official said.Delhi’s maximum temperature was 32.2 degrees Celsius on Monday, three notches above normal, against 30.1 on Sunday. The minimum was 17.4 degrees Celsius, two degrees above normal but 1.3 below Sunday’s minimum.“Temperature will remain in check following this upcoming western disturbance and should not rise much over the weekend either,” said the official.
