/data/photo/2021/11/17/6194917793b20.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1 "Toxic smog covers New Delhi India, schools will close everything")
NEW DELHI, KOMPAS.com – New Delhi’s primary schools will be closed to protect children from the toxic smog that envelops the huge city of 20 million people, the Indian capital’s prime minister said Friday.
Smoke from farmers burning crop stumps, vehicle exhaust and factory emissions mingle each winter, enveloping New Delhi in a noxious haze.
As of Friday (11/4/2022), the levels of the most dangerous particulate matter PM2.5 – which is so small it can enter the bloodstream – were nearly 25 times higher than the World Health Organization (WHO) daily maximum. , according to IQAir monitoring.
Delhi Prime Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who has been criticized by citizens and political opponents for failing to address the crisis, said primary schools will be closed from Saturday (11/5/2022) until the pollution situation will improve.
“No child should suffer in any way,” Kejriwal told reporters, quoted by the news agency. AFP.
New Delhi is often ranked as one of the most polluted cities in the world. On Friday (11/4/2022), the city is again at the top of the list of large cities with the worst air quality according to IQAir.
Education Hand in 2020 it attributed 1.67 million deaths in India to air pollution during 2019, including nearly 17,500 in New Delhi.
The local government often announces plans to reduce pollution, for example by stopping construction work, but with little effect.
Tens of thousands of farmers across northern India burn their fields at the start of each winter to remove crop stubble from newly harvested paddy fields.
This practice is a major driver of the annual haze problem in Delhi and continues despite efforts to persuade farmers to use different remediation methods.
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Smoke from farm fires accounted for a third of Delhi’s air pollution on Thursday, according to India’s air quality monitoring agency.
This situation has also become a political conflict. New Delhi and Punjab are ruled by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), rival of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“As of today, the AAP-run state Punjab will see agricultural fires increase by more than 19% in 2021,” BJP Indian Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav tweeted Wednesday (11/2/2022 ).
“There is no question about who turned Delhi into a gas chamber,” he added.
Kejriwal then called for an end to blaming and blaming each other for this responsibility.
“This won’t help find a solution. We can blame them and they can blame us, but it won’t do anything,” he said.
“Farmers need a solution,” he added. “The day they have a solution, they will stop burning the hay.”
Read also: 100 cities in the world most polluted by air pollution: 94 located in India, China and Pakistan
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