New Delhi:

More than five lakh litres of water was sprinkled at 13 pollution hotspots in Delhi over the past two days to hold down dust, a Delhi Fire Services (DFS) official said on Sunday.

The exercise was initiated on Saturday following orders from the Delhi government on checking dust pollution in the city.

The 13 hotspots where water was sprinkled were Rohini, Dwarka, Okhla Phase II, Punjabi Bagh, Anand Vihar, Vivek Vihar, Wazirpur, Jahangirpuri, RK Puram, Bawana, Narela, Mundka and Mayapuri.

These were identified by the Central Pollution Control Board.

“Within Saturday and Sunday, the fire department deployed over 400 fire personnel and sprinkled more than five lakh litres of water across the identified hotspots to curb pollution,” Chief Fire Officer Atul Garg said.

He said a total of 20 fire tenders were pressed into service on Saturday and more fire tenders were deployed.

Delhi has been grappling with hazardous levels of pollution since late October, with the air quality dipping to “severe” category a few times.

The city saw a marginal improvement in the air quality on Saturday morning due to a slight increase in wind speed.

Most of the air quality monitoring stations in Delhi recorded AQI in the “very poor” category on Saturday.

The overall air quality index (AQI) in the national capital read 234 at 4 pm, down from 312 at 4 pm on Friday.

An AQI between 201 and 300 is considered “poor”, 301-400 “very poor” and 401-500 “severe”.