India’s capital New Delhi ordered all primary schools to halt face-to-face classes on Thursday night until further notice due to worsening smog in the sprawling megacity.

Home to more than 30 million people, New Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area consistently top the world rankings for air pollution during the winter months.

Smog is blamed for thousands of premature deaths each year and is an annual source of misery for the capital’s residents; Various piecemeal government initiatives fail to measurably address the problem.

Prime Minister Atishi, who goes by the same name, said in a statement on social media platform X: “Due to increasing pollution levels, all primary schools in Delhi will switch to online classes until further instructions.” he said.

Schools are frequently closed during the worst weeks of the annual air pollution crisis, leading to numerous other disruptions across the city.

Authorities also regularly impose bans on construction activities and restrictions on diesel-powered freight trucks arriving from other parts of the country in an effort to alleviate the toxic clouds covering the capital.

Gray skies and acrid smoke have made life a misery for New Delhi residents this week.

Levels of PM2.5 pollutants (dangerous, cancer-causing microparticles that enter the bloodstream through the lungs) were recorded at more than 50 times the daily maximum recommended by the World Health Organization on Wednesday.

New Delhi is shrouded in acrid smog every year, blamed on farmers elsewhere in India burning stubble to clear their fields for plowing, as well as smoke from factories and traffic.

Colder temperatures and slow-moving winds make matters worse by trapping deadly pollutants each winter from mid-October through at least January.

India’s Supreme Court ruled last month that clean air is a fundamental human right, ordering both the central government and state-level authorities to take action.

But critics say squabbles between central and state-level officials, as well as rival politicians heading neighboring states, have compounded the problem.

Politicians have been accused of not wanting to anger key figures in their constituencies, especially powerful farmers’ groups.

New Delhi authorities have launched various initiatives to combat pollution that have yielded little practical results.

Government trucks are used to regularly spray water to reduce pollution for short periods of time.

A new plan announced this month to use three small drones to spray water mist has been derided by critics as another “Band-Aid” solution to the public health crisis.

A study in the medical journal The Lancet announced that 1.67 million premature deaths in the world’s most populous country in 2019 were attributed to air pollution.

New Delhi’s choking carbon smog comes as researchers warn planet-warming fossil fuel emissions will hit a record high this year, according to new findings from the international network of scientists at the Global Carbon Project.

bur/gle/sco