What's the pollution level? You can check air quality of a city on Google

A day after the SrI Lankan cricket team players complained of pollution in Delhi and wore face masks on the grounds during their match, global tech giant Google has launched an air quality check and search feature on its platform.

The company said that after the portal witnessed an overwhelming number of queries on air quality, it developed the feature. The company said that the feature can grade the pollution level in a city and also show at which level from low to high pollution at air quality is at any given time. 

The company has launched this feature for the first time in India and believes that it will find many users. 

Sri Lankan cricket team on Monday held up proceedings in the third Test against India, complaining of poor air quality and forced the hosts to declare its innings.

In a first-ever incident in the 140-year-history of Test cricket, an international team wore anti-pollution masks while fielding and then refused to continue, stopping play for 26 minutes on three occasions.

According to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Delhi's air quality has been rated as very poor.

The CPCB states: "Exposure to such air for a prolonged period can trigger respiratory illness. The most dominant pollutants are PM2.5 and PM10. These are ultrafine particulates, which can measure up to 30 times finer than the width of a human hair. The concentration of PM2.5 and PM10 were 223 and 383 micrograms per cubic metre at 1 pm today afternoon. The corresponding 24-hour prescribed standards are 60 and 100."