NEW DELHI: Diwali celebrations across the city this year were more quiet in comparison to last year but produced more air pollution due to weather conditions and use of more smoke-producing cracker

New Delhi: Diwali this year was quieter but left the city’s air more polluted than last year’s festival.

The problem of garbage clearance has been compounded due to an increase in the waste generation in the City during Deepavali.

Although the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) had claimed that it would deploy additional trucks and pourakarmikas to clear garbage during Deepavali, heaps of garbage were seen lying uncleared in commercial as well as residential areas of the City. Garbage has not been cleared for the past three days in crowded areas such as K R Market, Avenue Road, Cottonpet, Ragipet and Balepet in the central business district and residential areas of Basavanagudi, Malleswaram, K R Puram, Indiranagar and Koramangala.

For a city already troubled by noise pollution, the Deepavali night further took the malaise to new levels, especially in residential areas, anti-pollution control boards have found.

The Central Pollution Control Board had instructed the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board to measure noise levels on November 6, when the twin cities were just getting into a festive mood, and November 13, the Deepavali Day.

This Diwali night saw a rise in air pollution levels in some pockets of the Capital while noise levels declined compared with last year, according to an air-noise pollution assessment report released by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) on Wednesday.

A senior CPCB official said: “The rise in air pollution can be attributed to adverse meteorological conditions -- decrease in average temperature, low wind speed, and increase in humidity -- in and around Delhi and the fact that people probably burst more smoke-producing crackers.”

This Diwali was quieter, but had higher pollution level, a survey by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has found.

Jaipur: The pollution control board would keep an eye on pollution level in nine cities of the state on Tuesday.

Among the nine cities are Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bhiwadi, Alwar, Udaipur, Pali, Kota, Bhilwara and Bikaner. The department would send the report on pollution to district collectors, department of environment, ministry of environment and forests, police commissioners and superintendents of police, said an official of Rajasthan State Pollution Control Board (RSPCB).