Delhi air pollution levels worsening
The Delhi BJP on Wednesday demanded closing of schools for physical classes and conducting online teaching to protect children in view of high level of air pollution in the national capital. In a letter to Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena, Delhi BJP Chief Adesh Gupta raised the demand and claimed that every seventh adult and every second child in Delhi is troubled by the pollution. Mr Gupta also said that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal should talk to his counterpart in the AAP ruled Punjab to curb burning of paddy straw to control smoke released by it and polluting air in Delhi.
“We are all concerned about the heavy pollution in Delhi which is increasing continuously in Delhi and the people are getting sick in large number," Mr Gupta said in his letter. Delhi's pollution is reaching the very severe category and the city is turning into a "gas chamber" due to stubble burning in Punjab, Mr Gupta claimed. Children are being affected the most with pollution reaching very severe levels. Sending children in open fields or outside the house in such severe pollution is making them sick, he said.
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"I request you that children should be allowed to take online classes from home for the time being. This arrangement should continue till the pollution subsides, so that the children could be saved from falling ill." SAFAR, a forecasting agency under the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences, said the share of stubble burning in Delhi's PM2.5 pollution increased to 32 per cent due to favourable transport-level wind speed.
Delhi's air quality improved marginally on Wednesday owing to relatively better meteorological conditions, with the Commission for Air Quality Management saying there is no immediate need to implement curbs, such as a ban on the entry of trucks and a closure of educational institutions, under the fourth stage of the Graded Response Action Plan. The 24-hour Air Quality Index (AQI) of the city stood at 376, improving from 424 on Tuesday, which was the worst since December 26 last year when it was 459.
With pollution levels worsening, the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) had on Saturday directed authorities to impose a ban on construction and demolition activities in Delhi-NCR, except in essential projects, and other curbs under stage three of the Graded Response Action plan (GRAP). GRAP, first implemented in 2017, is a set of anti-air pollution measures followed in the national capital and its vicinity according to the severity of the situation.
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