IMPACT OF COVID-19 INDUCED LOCKDOWN ON THE AIR QUALITY IN THE SOUTHERN KEY REGIONS OF INDIA

The ongoing global pandemic caused by the novel virus '2019-nCoV' made the people around the world remain in their residence for months due to continuous lockdown. As a result of this continuous lockdown, the global economic performance is poor and India is not exempted from this. In India, the government imposed lockdown in late March 2020 and still it is prolonging in phases. Even though this continuous lockdown is announced for restraining the spread rate of the COVID-19 virus, this process disrupted routine lives of people and caused income loss. But these forced restrictions resulted in reduced air pollution around the country. This article focuses on the major air pollutants such as PM2.5, PM10, and CO in the southern key regions of India located in Chennai, Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam during the period 1st April 2020 to 31st July 2020 and interesting results revealed from this study.