Following a rain spell in the nearby hill states and cloudy conditions in Punjab during the past 48 hours, the air quality index of Punjab showed a considerable improvement with just two of the six cities now featuring in the ‘poor’ category of air. However, the high number of farm fires across the state continues to be worrisome with over 200 recorded on Friday taking the tally to over 5,800 to date.  The fresh readings on Saturday afternoon showed Patiala with the lowest AQI of 144. The air quality in the industrial town of Mandi Gobindgarh which dipped to “poor” category during the past week improved on Saturday to 188, while other districts also remained in the “moderate” level on Saturday, almost a week after Diwali.In Amritsar, the AQI was still in ‘poor’ category with a reading of 225, while in Bathinda, the AQI read 210, Khanna was 155, down from 235, on Friday, 151 in Ludhiana. An AQI between zero and 50 is considered ‘good’, 51 to 100 ‘satisfactory’, 101 to 200 ‘moderate’, 201 to 300 ‘poor’, 301 to 400 ‘very poor’, and 401 to 500 ‘severe’.“The saving grace was the breeze and wind speed that helped the pollutants to disperse. In case it rains in some parts along with a high velocity wind, there will be more improvement,” say experts.“Further, the farm fire season is almost at its end, the AQI in almost the whole of North India will improve. Already, Punjab has witnessed over 5,800 farm fires this season, the highest across the country, despite the authorities claiming to have pumped in crores of rupees and deputed hundreds of officials to check farm fires,” they added.