NEW DELHI: Authorities in New Delhi announced on Saturday a one-week closure of schools as the Indian capital’s pollution control body warned of a looming health emergency due to smog.

“Starting Monday, schools are being shut so that children don’t have to breathe polluted air,” Delhi’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal told reporters in the megacity of 20 million people.

Delhi is ranked one of the world’s most polluted cities, with a hazardous melange of factory and vehicle emissions and smoke from agricultural fires turning its air a toxic grey every winter.

On Saturday, levels of PM 2.5 particles — the smallest and most harmful, which can enter the bloodstream — topped 300 on the air quality index.

The burning of agricultural waste in Delhi’s neighbouring states — a major contributor to the city’s pollution levels every winter — has continued despite a Supreme Court ban.

Tens of thousands of farmers around the capital burn their stubble — or crop residue — at the start of every winter, clearing fields from recently harvested paddies to make way for wheat.

The number of farm fires this season has been the highest in the past four years, according to government data. Earlier this year, the Delhi government opened its first “smog tower” containing 40 giant fans that pump 1,000 cubic metres of air per second through filters.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2021