The local government of Delhi, the capital city of India, on Monday rejected India's Supreme Court's call to declare a "pollution ban" as school students stayed indoors for a week due to dangerous levels of smog and pollutants in the capital.
Air quality in Delhi - among the world's most polluted cities - regularly drops to a "severe" category in winter with levels of harmful particulates rising dangerously high, AFP reported.
On Saturday, the Supreme Court proposed for the first time a "pollution shutdown," effectively keeping the megacity's 20 million residents at home.
But in a court filing on Monday, the city government said such a move would only be "meaningful" if the states surrounding Delhi were also included.
One of the contributing factors to the city's winter smog is smoke pillowed from farmers burning their crop residue in neighboring states. Delhi is also surrounded by many affiliated cities like Noida and Ghaziabad which are inhabited by millions of people.
"Given the small size of Delhi, the impact of the lockdown will be limited on the air quality system," the Delhi government said. However, the local government of Delhi acknowledged that industry was the largest contributor to air pollution in the city, followed by transport and dust from roads and arid sites
And last Friday, the air quality in New Delhi deteriorated again, as a thick cloud of toxic smog hung over the Indian capital, due to the low temperature and wind speed, in conjunction with the high frequency of burning crop residues in the agricultural lands surrounding the city.
The fog reduced visibility and the air quality index, which measures the degree of air pollution, reached 461 on a scale of 500, according to the Federal Council on Pollution Control.
This level of pollution means that breathing air can negatively affect healthy people and pose serious risks to those with sick conditions.
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