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As Tuesday dawned residents of the world's most polluted city encountered inhaling severely hazardous air that was classified as the "severe" category.

Extremely High Air Quality Levels

Several parts of the city showed an AQI exceeding 500, which equals a tenfold increase over the healthy threshold recommended by the global health authority.

Certain monitoring stations, readings of dangerous airborne particles reached peaks of eighteen hundred, amounting to 15-20x higher than safe levels.

Fireworks Restrictions and Current Developments

For the past four years, the government had maintained a comprehensive restriction on the distribution and bursting of fireworks during celebrations due to their major role to the dangerous pollution that blankets the metropolis as the cold season approaches.

Nevertheless earlier this year, the recently formed local leadership petitioned the highest court to request a modification of the restrictions.

The suggestion was allowing "environmentally conscious pyrotechnics" – previously criticized by environmental experts as being only roughly 30 percent less polluting – as a compromise between "tradition and public health".

Legal Decision and Enforcement

Despite concerns of public health and environmental activists, the court agreed to the proposal, stipulating that green firecrackers could be ignited during limited hours throughout the festival.

On Monday night, there was considerable violation of the time restrictions across the capital, with insufficient monitoring regarding whether the pyrotechnics being used were actually the eco-friendly variety.

Several monitoring devices throughout Delhi registered air quality spiking around late evening to extremely hazardous readings seen during the festival in at least the past three years.

Cross-Border Effects

The widespread use of fireworks during Diwali also sparked a blame game with bordering Pakistan, with authorities in Pakistani Punjab province partially attributing declining atmospheric conditions in the city of Lahore on contaminants coming from neighboring India following the festivities.

Persistent Pollution Crisis

Alarmingly severe concentrations of pollution in the city have remained as a significant problem for fifteen-plus years, with the problem continuing to worsen.

Near Diwali, the levels of dangerous particles in the air has been observed to shoot up to significantly exceeding the most severe levels ever measured in China's capital, which was previously regarded as the planet's dirtiest city.

Multiple Contamination Sources

This crisis in the city is caused by a convergence of multiple factors including heavy vehicle emissions, dust, development work, rubbish burning and smoke from agricultural fires in adjacent areas of Punjab and Haryana.

Within these states, farmers routinely set their fields on fire to clear them quickly, generating dangerous smog that remains stagnant over the capital as colder air sets in.

Medical and Financial Toll

Both financial and medical toll on the approximately 33 million people living in the metropolitan zone is substantial, according to numerous investigations.

This pollution causes increased incidence of neurological, cardiovascular and breathing disorders, and can result in malignancies.

The pollution is calculated to be responsible for ten thousand early mortalities per year in the capital.