new delhi air quality remained in the severe category in delhi and surrounding cities on saturday while haryana and punjab too were enveloped in a blanket of haze prompting their chief ministers to press the centre for an urgent meeting to develop a joint action plan to address the serious situation due to pollution in the regiona day after the delhincr recorded its worst air quality forcing authorities to shut schools ban all construction activities and declare a public health emergency there was a slight dip in pollution levels with the overall air quality index aqi at 402 at 8 pm as against 484 on fridayhowever 20 out of 37 monitoring stations recorded aqi in severe category 401500 vivek vihar was the most polluted at 450 followed by anand vihar and ito both at 448in a crackdown on violators authorities arrested 34 people including a director and three engineers from sites of five real estate groups in noida and greater noida for carrying out construction activities despite the banin the national capital region ncr ghaziabad noida and greater noida recorded aqis of 455 432 and 429 respectively at 8 pm on saturday on friday they had an aqi of over 490weather experts said there is a significant improvement in wind speed and it will increase gradually from sundaywith farmers continuing to defy the ban on stubble burning a blanket of haze engulfed punjab and haryana with several districts reporting air quality index in severe 101500 and very poor 301400 categoriesvisibility also reduced substantially in most parts of the two agrarian statesfatehabad aqi 493 in haryana had the worst average air quality in india over a period of 24 hours ending on saturday evening according to the central pollution control boards cpcb saturday 4pm bulletin hisar jind faridabad and kaithal also recorded air quality at severe levelin neighbouring punjab the air quality fell in poor and very poor categories bathinda recorded air quality index at 318 followed by ludhiana at 302an aqi between 050 is considered good 51100 satisfactory 101200 moderate 201300 poor 301400 very poor and 401500 severe above 500 is severeplus or emergency category