New Delhi to restrict vehicles as pollution spikes

NEW DELHI: New Delhi will restrict the use of private vehicles for a week in a bid to offer residents some respite from the toxic smog choking the megacity, authorities announced on Monday.

Delhi, home to 30 million people, is blanketed in acrid smog at the onset of winter every year, primarily blamed on stubble burning by farmers in the neighbouring agrarian states.

The city is regularly ranked as one of the most polluted on the planet, with its smog blamed for hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year. So far, government-led efforts have failed to tackle the country´s air quality problem, which a 2017 US study found kills one million people prematurely in India every year.

Gopal Rai, Delhi´s environment minister, said the road-rationing scheme would be introduced for a week from next Monday, a day after Diwali -- the Hindu festival of lights, when revellers set off firecrackers.

Under the scheme, cars with odd and even number plates would be allowed to travel on alternate days during the period. “The decision has been taken as after Diwali, pollution may rise further,” Rai said at a press conference. The situation would be reviewed after November 20, he added.

Levels of the most dangerous PM2.5 particles -- so tiny they can enter the bloodstream -- reached 184 micrograms per cubic metre on Monday according to IQAir, 12 times the daily maximum recommended by the World Health Organisation.