NEW DELHI, April 7: The city administration of New Delhi on Sunday ordered local schools to close from Monday amid worries of transport chaos in the city where diesel-run buses have been banned.

The local administration said state-run and privately owned schools, numbering around 2,500, will stay closed for two days to ease the burden on the city’s depleted fleet of buses which operate on environment-friendly Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).

The step was part of a series of measures being planned by the city government to avert a breakdown of public transportation following last week’s ban by India’s Supreme Court on New Delhi’s fleet of 8,000 diesel-run buses, an official said.

The ban implemented the next day led to overcrowding on the capital’s fleet of 6,700 CNG buses on the weekend, but the local government said the chaos could become unmanageable when businesses, offices and schools reopen after the weekend on Monday.

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected appeals seeking extra time for New Delhi’s public bus owners to phase out their diesel-run vehicles in favour of those that run on CNG.

Some 4.5 million people in New Delhi use buses everyday and thousands of children to and from their homes.—AFP