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Delhi should stop counting Moderate air as a good day

Published: 5 November 2026 | Author: Team JanVayu | Reading time: 6 min

Delhi's government says the capital had 220 "good to moderate" days between January and October 2026. The environmentalist Vimlendu Jha answered that the official data shows one good day, and that Moderate has been folded into a number which headlines then call good air. He is right about the core of it. Delhi should stop presenting Moderate air as a success.

Jha quotes 222 days. The Union Environment Ministry's release of 31 October says 220, and our count from CPCB's bulletins is 219. We have not found a statement of 222, and the gap does not change the argument.

One day was Good

Delhi, 1 January to 31 October 2026: 304 daysGood: 1 daySatisfactory62 daysModerate156 daysPoor or worse85 days219 days at Moderate or better, 85 at Poor or worse. CPCB bulletin.

From 1 January to 31 October, 304 days, CPCB's bulletin rated Delhi Good on one day, Satisfactory on 62 and Moderate on 156. That is 219 days at Moderate or better, and 85 at Poor or worse. The Ministry's figures are 220 and 84, one day away from ours, the same one-day gap as on 17 October. The government has not published its day-by-day list, so we cannot say which day it is.

Jha's "one good day" is exactly what CPCB's bulletin shows. Delhi has had between 0 and 5 Good days a year since 2016: 0, 2, 0, 2, 5, 1, 3, 1, 0, 0 and now 1.

Good days a year, Delhi0’162’170’182’195’201’213’221’230’240’251’26**1 January to 31 October. CPCB daily AQI bulletin, Delhi.

Moderate is above the national standard

On CPCB's scale a Moderate day runs from an AQI of 101 to 200. For PM2.5 that means 61 to 90 µg/m³ in a day, against a national 24-hour standard of 60 and a WHO guideline of 15. The top of the Moderate band is six times the WHO figure. CPCB's own bulletin describes what Moderate means for people: "breathing discomfort to the people with lungs, asthma and heart diseases".

A headline that says "220 clean-air days" tells those readers the opposite of CPCB's advisory. DJ News Live ran it that way on 3 November. Whoever chose the framing, the effect on a parent deciding about a school run or a person with asthma deciding about a walk is the same.

What the Ministry's own table shows

The release is more candid than the headlines made from it.

Delhi had fewer very bad days this year and about the same amount of fine particles. That is progress, and it is smaller than "220 good days".

The weather did some of the work

A news report puts 61.4 mm of rain at Safdarjung on 30 October, and CPCB rated that day Satisfactory at 60. AQI was 117 on 31 October and 261 on 1 November, then 324, 350 and 377 on 2, 3 and 4 November, and Stage II of GRAP was invoked on 2 November according to press reports. A count that closes just after rain flatters the year, because the days that followed were Poor and Very Poor.

What Delhi should report instead

  1. The days at or below the national standard, meaning Satisfactory or better, counted for the same dates every year. On our count that is 63 of 304 days in 2026, about one in five.
  2. The PM2.5 and PM10 averages, shown beside the national standard, in the same release as the day count.
  3. The number of stations behind the index. Delhi's median bulletin rested on 5 stations in 2016 and 44 in 2026, and a comparison across that change needs saying.
  4. The day-by-day list behind every count, so anyone can check the one-day gaps and trace a figure like 222.

Nobody should call a count that includes Moderate "clean-air days". We ask the Delhi government, the Ministry and the newsrooms that carry their releases to drop the phrase. If you have the statement that contains 222, or a reason to correct anything here, write to contribute@janvayu.in and we will update this post in public.

Sources

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