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As Tuesday dawned inhabitants of the world's most polluted city encountered inhaling severely hazardous air that registered in the "severe" range.

Extremely High Pollution Levels

Several parts of the capital registered an AQI exceeding 500, which translates to ten times the recommended level recommended by the WHO.

Certain monitoring stations, concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 soared to of 1,800, amounting to 15-20x exceeding safe limits.

Firecracker Ban and Current Developments

For the past four years, authorities had enforced a total prohibition on the purchase and ignition of fireworks during the Festival of Lights due to their substantial impact to the deadly pollution that blankets the city as colder weather begins.

However earlier this year, the current regional government appealed to the judicial authority to request a relaxation of the restrictions.

The suggestion was allowing "environmentally conscious pyrotechnics" – historically doubted by environmental experts as being only roughly 30 percent reduced emissions – as a compromise between "heritage and ecological concerns".

Judicial Decision and Reality

Much to the frustration of medical and ecological activists, judicial authorities complied with the proposal, mandating that green firecrackers could be used during designated hours throughout the Diwali.

Throughout the festival evening, there was extensive violation of the designated hours across the metropolis, with little regulation regarding whether the fireworks being used were actually the supposedly greener version.

Several monitoring devices throughout Delhi registered air quality peaking around the night hours to extremely hazardous measurements recorded during the festival in at least the past three years.

International Consequences

The widespread use of firecrackers during Diwali also sparked a dispute with adjacent Pakistan, with officials in Pakistan's Punjab province partly blaming deteriorating atmospheric conditions in their urban centers on pollutants traveling from neighboring India following the celebrations.

Persistent Environmental Problem

Alarmingly severe concentrations of pollution in Delhi have remained as a significant issue for more than 15 years, with the situation gradually deteriorating.

Around celebratory seasons, the amount of dangerous particles in the atmosphere has been documented to shoot up to seventy percent above the most severe levels ever documented in Beijing, which was formerly considered as the planet's dirtiest city.

Multiple Pollution Sources

This crisis in the capital is caused by a combination of various sources including automobile exhaust, dust, building projects, waste incineration and haze from farm burning in neighbouring states of farming communities.

Throughout these areas, rural residents routinely burn crop residue to clear them quickly, producing toxic smog that becomes contained over the metropolitan area as colder air descends.

Medical and Financial Consequences

The economic and health consequences on the approximately 33 million inhabitants calling home the metropolitan zone is enormous, according to numerous investigations.

The contaminated air results in increased incidence of neurological, heart and circulatory and breathing diseases, and can result in malignancies.

Environmental contamination is estimated to be accounting for approximately 10k early mortalities each year in the city.