GRAP based on AQI by EWS.

 "A thick layer of fog engulfed the national capital on Saturday (today) as the overall Air Quality Index (AQI) dropped to 251, categorised as 'Poor' by the Central Pollution Control Board. As the India Gate and surrounding area recorded 'Poor' AQI, the air quality in other areas of the national capital including Anand Vihar dropped to 334, categorised as 'Very Poor'." News18. Unfortunately, not unexpectedly, "The early warning system (EWS) for air quality in Delhi has made incorrect predictions on four of the last six days till Friday (yesterday) amid plummeting Air Quality Index in the city." "Since its launch in October 2018 to provide air quality warnings up to 10 days in advance, the EWS had a worrying track record leaving citizens uninformed about when precautions need to be taken." ABP. Wrong or not, "Delhi's Chief Minister Atishi Marlena announced on October 15 that 99 teams will inspect private and government construction sites in Delhi to ensure compliance with dust mitigating measures, as GRAP Stage 1 has been implemented along with other related measures." HT. "The Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) is a framework designed to combat air pollution in the Delhi-NCR (National Capital Region) region." The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) implements GRAP in four stages according to the severity of the AQI. BS. At every stage the emphasis seems to be on motor vehicles which targets the middle class while sparing the poor vote bank (wikipedia) and hordes of politicians, civil servants and diplomats who whizz around in their luxury cars. India emits 5.2 million tonnes of PM2.5 annually, of which 82% comes from biomass burning and industrial activities and only 7% of PM2.5 is from vehicular emissions. Biomass is used by the poor for cooking and for heating in winter, wrote Chandra Bhushan. Other measures for reducing vehicular pollution are blending ethanol in fuel and electric vehicles. Ethanol's carbon footprint at 0.295 kg CO2 equivalent per liter is less than that of fossil fuels but not zero. "Most alarming is the water footprint (WF) of ethanol: 1,344 liters per liter of ethanol produced," and "diverting agricultural land for biofuel production poses significant risks to food security," wrote Aditya Sinha. "Barring July-August, food inflation has hovered in a range of 8-9% since November 2023," and cereal inflation has averaged 11% in the last two years," wrote Prof Himanshu. High food prices mostly hurt the poor. Batteries of electric cars need electricity for charging and "In the Indian case, in 2010-11, 65% of the country's generation capacity depended on fossil fuels. In 2020-21, this was down to 61.4%." 53% of electricity came from coal in 2020-21 and generation from sun and wind "amounts to a little over one-fifth of our overall capacity, against 8% in 2024-15," wrote Vivek Kaul. Meanwhile, "in Chhattisgarh's biodiversity rich Hasdeo Aranya, the state government informed the National Green Tribunal that more than 98,000 trees were cut for coal mining in Parsa East Kete Basan coal field since 2012." ET. Just like EWS policies are decided by the uninformed. We are left to grapple with GRAP.