India, Feb. 7 -- The mercury rose marginally in Delhi on Friday even as the air quality was in the "moderate" category a day after the data about it was mostly unavailable for almost the entire day for the third time this year.

An average Air Quality Index of 167 (moderate) was recorded at 9am on Friday based on data from 36 out of Delhi's 39 monitoring stations. Only data from five stations was available on Thursday until around 9pm. The national bulletin, which is released at 4pm daily with AQI data for cities across the country, for Thursday remained unavailable.

A Delhi-National Capital Region AQI bulletin, released around 9pm on Thursday, said the 24-hour average AQI at 4pm was 177 (moderate). At 9pm on Thursday, data from 36 stati...