Delhi's winter air: emergency curbs become routine

On 21 October 2026, the Commission for Air Quality Management invoked Stage I of the Graded Response Action Plan across Delhi and the National Capital Region, the first invocation of the 2026 winter season under a revised GRAP schedule approved on 28 September 2026. Delhi's daily average air quality index had risen from 179, Moderate, on 20 October to 244 and 245, Poor, on 21 October, and forecasts indicated the Poor category would persist. Stage I, which covers AQI 201 to 300, brings 25 action points, including mechanised road sweeping, water sprinkling, waste management, tighter checks on polluting vehicles, and emission controls on industry, power plants, and brick kilns.

GRAP is a four-stage emergency framework, run by the CAQM, a statutory body under the Commission for Air Quality Management in NCR and Adjoining Areas Act, 2021. Stage II covers Very Poor air, AQI 301 to 400; Stage III covers Severe air, 401 to 450, with restrictions on certain vehicles and construction and possible hybrid schooling; Stage IV covers Severe-plus air above 450. The plan traces its origin to Supreme Court directions in M.C. Mehta v. Union of India in 2016 and was notified in 2017, and since a 2022 revision its stages can be triggered on forecasts rather than after the air has already turned severe.

Alongside GRAP, Delhi introduced a Proactive Winter Air Quality Management Framework for 2026-27, shifting from a purely reactive approach to year-round institutional measures and airshed-based management treating Delhi-NCR as a single air-pollution region. Its measures include barring non-Delhi-registered vehicles that fail BS-VI emission standards from entering the capital in winter, and denying fuel through automatic number-plate recognition cameras to end-of-life vehicles or those without a valid pollution-under-control certificate.

The debate is whether emergency measures are working. An analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air found Delhi's average winter AQI rose from 280 in 2022-23 to 295 in 2025-26, with nearly four in five winter days under Stage II restrictions or higher, and in 10 of 12 severe episodes studied, pollution worsened in the week after the city entered Stage III or IV. A separate study by scientists from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, and CAQM estimated that without GRAP, Delhi could have faced about 60 per cent more hours of severe air. Both findings can be true at once: curbs may blunt peaks without reversing the trend, which is why analysts argue the long-term answer is cutting emissions at source.