India is urging its neighbours, including Bangladesh and Pakistan, to take joint action against their shared problem of air pollution. The appeal, made at the Cop29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, comes as smog in the Indian capital Delhi largely exceeded the levels prescribed by the World Health Organization.
Schools switched to online classes on Monday until further notice as worsening toxic smog surged past 60 times the World Health Organization's recommended daily maximum.
Levels of PM2.5 pollutants – dangerous cancer-causing microparticles that enter the bloodstream through the lungs – peaked at 921 micrograms per cubic metre at midday on Monday, according to IQAir pollution monitors, with a reading above 15 in a 24-hour period considered unhealthy by the WHO.
Delhi authorities put in place stringent restrictions from Friday, in an attempt to tackle issue which affects the densely populated towns and cities of India’s northern plains.
All construction work in an around the city has been banned and diesel-run intercity buses have been suspended.
Last Wednesday the Air Quality Index (AQI) reached 473 for the first time this season in Delhi, a city of 20 million inhabitants, prompting calls for rapid action on the smog, which often lasts for three months starting mid-October.
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On Thursday, the Supreme Court asked the city government’s Commission for Air Quality Management why preemptive steps had not been taken before air quality worsened.
Aprajita Singh, a lawyer appointed to assist the court, warned the situation could worsen.
"They have not done anything. We should not become the most polluted city in the world," the Indian Express newspaper quoted her as saying in court.
Political battles
Politicians have criticised local legislators in the city, where air quality has remained in the "poor" category since 30 October, when the AQI was 307.
"The national capital has become a gas chamber," said Shahzad Poonawala, a spokesman for the ruling BJP party, while appearing on live television wearing a gas mask after the AQI deteriorated to 780 in one working-class district of Delhi on Wednesday.
"Had it been the same in any other country, a medical emergency would have been declared by now," echoed the opposition Congress party’s Abhishek Dutt.
City health minister Gopal Rai blamed the smog on vehicles, as well as on the bonfires started by farmers to clean up their land ahead of the winter sowing season, in the two states surrounding Delhi.
"All governments of the northern states will have to work together," Rai said, as officials reported 7,600 illegal farm fires.
Meanwhile, tourists in the Taj Mahal town of Agra found the 17th century mausoleum cloaked in smog.
Alarm bells
According to a study published last week by Local Circles four out of 10 families in Delhi and its neighbourhood reported visiting a doctor or hospital for pollution-linked ailments in the past three weeks.
"81 percent of the families had one or more members with pollution-linked complaints; 33 percent of families bought cough syrup in the last three weeks and 13 percent of them acquired inhalers or nebulisers, the report added.
India’s leading climate watchdog said the situation was far worse than indicated by the random health survey.
The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said air quality was worse than the previous winter in India's northern plains, home to 523 million people.
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"It is an omnipresent problem and requires urgent and deliberate action everywhere," the Delhi-based Centre said in March and added India endured extreme weather on nearly 90 percent of the days in 2023.
The privately-run agency in a separate report also reported high ozone at ground-level in 10 major urban hubs, making the air more toxic.
"The problem was more widespread than in 2020, and the toxic build-up lasted longer," CSE said.
"Toxic built-up lasted longer in locations affected by the problem (and) even smaller metropolitan areas witnessed rapid increase," it said, adding the problem was not limited to the summer in India.
German website Statista said India suffered more than two million pollution-linked fatalities in 2021, up 60 percent since 1990.
