New Delhi closes schools until further notice due to pollution

Generalized teleworking. Faced with the dangerous level of air pollution, the government of New Delhi was forced on Tuesday evening to close its schools until further notice and to invite the inhabitants of the Indian capital to work from home.

On Saturday, the municipality had already ordered the closure of schools for a week and prohibited all construction for four days. This Tuesday evening, the commission in charge of air quality in Delhi went further by decreeing the closure of schools until further notice.

Construction sites and thermal power stations shut down

Heavy goods vehicles are not allowed to enter the capital until November 21, except for those carrying basic necessities, and most construction sites have been halted, according to the decree.

Pollution fog cannons and sprinklers will kick in at least three times a day in the most polluted neighborhoods. Six of the 11 thermal power plants located within a radius of 300 kilometers have been ordered to cease functioning until further notice.

The commission also said at least half of civil servants will have to work from home and private sector employees are encouraged to do the same. These measures came 24 hours after the Delhi government decided to resist an appeal by the Supreme Court for “containment due to pollution”.

This air pollution comes, among other things, from smoke from agricultural burns in neighboring states. However, the government argued to the Supreme Court that industry was primarily responsible for pollution followed by transport and dust from roads and construction sites.

Fine particle alerts

This week, the level of fine particles PM2.5, the most dangerous for health, exceeded 400 in several areas of the city. Last week, it climbed to 500, more than 30 times the maximum limit set by the World Health Organization.

According to the medical journal The Lancet, in 2020, nearly 17,500 people died in Delhi due to air pollution. The Indian capital is the most polluted in the world according to a report by the Swiss organization IQAir published in 2020.