Today's temperature drops to 9 degrees Celsius, but Delhi's AQI remains improved.

Delhi's Air Quality Index (AQI) was in the "moderate category" at 161 at 8am on Thursday, one day after the 24-hour average was 178 at 4pm.

After weeks of pollution in the "very poor" to "severe" categories, Delhi residents were relieved to wake up to "moderate" air quality on Thursday, December 5, as the overall Air Quality Index (AQI) was 161 at 8 am. However, as winter crept in, a thin layer of smog enveloped the city, lowering Thursday's low temperature to 9 degrees Celsius.

The air quality in Delhi began to deteriorate around Diwali and reached its worst level, known as "severe plus," in mid-November. As a result, authorities implemented Stage 4 of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), which includes restrictions such as prohibiting the operation of medium goods vehicles (MGVs) and heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) registered in Delhi with BS-IV registration and lower, with the exception of essential services.

Today's Delhi AQI
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) said that as of 8 am, Delhi's total AQI was 161, classified as "moderate." At 4 p.m. on Wednesday, the city's 24-hour average AQI was 178, which was better than the 268 it was on Tuesday.

As of 8 am, the AQI was 178 at Anand Vihar, 194 at Chandani Chowk, 130 at ITO, 152 at Wazirpur, 147 at Okhla Phase 2, 145 at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, 164 at Patparganj, 107 at Aya Nagar, 128 at Lodhi Road, 162 at IGI Airport (T3), and 152 at Punjabi Bagh, according to the CPCB statistics.

On the other hand, 'poor' regions like RK Puram, Mundka, Shadipur, Nehru Nagar, and Jahangirpuri reported AQIs of 204, 222, 249, and 206, respectively.

AQI values fall into one of the following categories: acceptable (zero to fifty), satisfactory (51 to 100), moderate (101 to 200), poor (201 to 300), extremely poor (301 to 400), and severe (401 to 500).

At 5:30 a.m. on Thursday, the lowest temperature in Delhi was 9 °C.

The Supreme Court rejects lifting GRAP restrictions.

The Supreme Court rejected a proposal to loosen GRAP-IV limits earlier on Monday. None of the NCR states—Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh—complied with its order to compensate construction workers, according to a bench of justices Abhay S. Oka and AG Masih. The bench further ordered the chief secretaries of these states to participate electronically on the next day.

According to the supreme court, only when it calls for high-ranking authorities does the process begin.

The Supreme Court also made it clear that it will only permit relaxations after seeing a declining trend. It also stated that it will hear arguments from the parties on Thursday regarding changes to GRAP IV's applicability.