The air quality commission for the National Capital Region announced on Sunday that restrictions under Stage III of the Graded Response Action Plan have been lifted due to a reduction in pollution.

The removal of the restrictions means that non-essential construction and demolition work, mining activities and brick kilns can resume. The curbs were imposed on January 6.

The Commission for Air Quality Management said that Delhi’s air quality index improved from 353 (very poor) on Saturday to 213 (poor) on Sunday. “Preventive/restrictive GRAP-III measures invoked on 06.01.2023 seems to have helped the AQI levels and forecast by IMD also predicts that the AQI will remain largely in ‘Poor/Very Poor’ category in coming days,” it said.

However, restrictions under Stage I and Stage II of the action plan will remain in force. Under these stages, the use of diesel generators has been banned, except for emergency services.

Further, authorities have been directed to carry out mechanical sweeping of roads on a daily basis, and to sprinkle water on streets to reduce dust.

In the past few days, Delhi had been recording high levels of pollution on account of slow wind speed and cold weather.

Delhi on Sunday recorded a minimum temperature of 4.7 degrees Celsius as cold wave conditions swept northern India.

The India Meteorological Department has predicted cold wave to severe cold wave conditions over some parts of North Rajasthan and cold wave conditions in isolated pockets of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh between January 15 and January 17.