Delhi air pollution: Govt introduces staggered work timings as capital faces worst smog of season

New Delhi: With Delhi and its satellite cities waking up to the season’s worst smog on Monday, the Delhi government on Monday introduced “staggered office timing” for government and municipal employees even as the Indian Meteorological Department forecast that “dense” fog will continue for the next three days.

Such dense fog gets mixed with highly polluting particles – caused by vehicular emission, stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana, and road dust - to create a poisonous blanket that wrapped the National Capital Region throughout the day, causing health problems and reduced the visibility.

At 4 PM, Delhi recorded an air quality index of 494 (out of 500) while the AQI in all the satellite cities like Noida, Gurugram and Ghaziabad remained in the severe category. The predominant polluting component is PM-2.5 goes to the lungs and harms the respiratory system.

Celebrated author William Dalrymple who landed in Delhi on Monday said his favourite “City of Djinns is currently a tragic, choking death trap”.

“Just arrived back in Delhi to find the city embalmed in an all-enveloping burial shroud of pollution. Even at 2 pm, (it is) impossible to see 100 m across the runway. I've never seen anything like this in 40 years of living here. What a fate for the City of Djinns- still, at its best the most fascinating of cities, but currently a tragic, choking death-trap,” Dalrymple wrote in a post.

As a part of the graded response action plan, Delhi Lieutenant Governor issued an order on staggered timings for Delhi government and Municipal Corporation of Delhi employees. The working hours for the MCD staff will be 8.30 am to 5 am whereas for Delhi government workers, the timings will be 10 am to 6.30 pm. The staggered timing will be in place till Feb 28.

But for lakhs of NCR residents who had to brave early morning chills and the toxic haze to their workplaces, it was a harrowing experience.

“The visibility was less than 500 mt and everything was grey and black on both sides of the highway,” said a school teacher who travels early morning daily from Greater Noida to her school in east Delhi. While physical classes have stopped for all students barring those at Standards 10 & 12, the teachers have to go to the school to take online classes.

The toxic blanket is likely to stay this week due to unfavourable weather with the IMD predicting “dense fog” till Thursday followed by “moderate fog” for the rest of the week.

“For any responsible government in India, the top priority should be pollution control in cities like Delhi. In addition to diminishing the quality of life, this kind of pollution, left unchecked, can bring India’s growth story to an end,” said economist Kaushik Basu, who was the union government’s former chief economic advisor.