As Tuesday dawned citizens of the world's most polluted city found themselves exposed to severely hazardous air that fell into the "severe" range.
Several parts of the capital recorded an AQI over 500, which translates to ten times the safe threshold set by the WHO.
Particular areas, readings of toxic particulate matter reached peaks of 1,800, amounting to fifteen to twenty times above acceptable levels.
Since 2020, authorities had maintained a complete ban on the sale and use of pyrotechnics during celebrations due to their substantial impact to the dangerous haze that blankets the metropolis as winter approaches.
However recently, the newly elected city leadership approached the highest court to propose a relaxation of the ban.
They proposed allowing "green crackers" – historically doubted by environmental experts as being only approximately one-third reduced emissions – as a middle ground between "tradition and ecological concerns".
Despite concerns of environmental and health activists, judges approved the appeal, mandating that green firecrackers could be used during specific periods throughout the celebrations.
On Monday night, there was widespread disregard of the regulated periods across the metropolis, with minimal monitoring regarding whether the firecrackers being used were actually the eco-friendly type.
Numerous recording stations throughout the capital recorded air quality spiking around midnight to the most severe measurements seen during celebrations in at least the past three years.
The proliferation of pyrotechnics during the festival also triggered a dispute with adjacent the neighboring country, with representatives in Pakistan's the Punjab region partially attributing declining atmospheric conditions in their urban centers on contaminants coming from neighboring India following the celebrations.
The dangerously high readings of air contamination in the city have remained as a serious issue for more than 15 years, with the situation showing no improvement.
Around Diwali, the concentration of dangerous particles in the air has been observed to shoot up to significantly exceeding the peak readings ever recorded in Beijing, which was once viewed as the globally most contaminated city.
The situation in the city is attributed to a combination of different contributors including automobile exhaust, airborne particles, construction activities, rubbish burning and haze from crop residue ignition in neighbouring regions of neighboring agricultural zones.
Throughout these areas, farmers regularly set their fields on fire to expedite field preparation, generating toxic haze that then gets trapped over the metropolitan area as winter air arrives.
Public health and economic consequences on the approximately 33 million inhabitants calling home the Delhi area is enormous, according to multiple studies.
These hazardous conditions leads to elevated rates of neurological, cardiovascular and lung disorders, and can even lead to malignancies.
Environmental contamination is projected to be causing 10,000 premature fatalities each year in the capital.
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