Agencies/New Delhi

India’s environmental court slammed the Delhi government yesterday for failing to improve its notoriously toxic air, as the capital spent another day blanketed in grey smog.
The National Green Tribunal demanded authorities hold a crisis meeting to come up with a strategy to tackle the haze that has worsened across the city in recent days as winter cloud traps pollutants.
“What is the status of air pollution? All you can say is that there is no pollution... All stakeholders who are dealing with air pollution indicate that Delhi is highly polluting,” the bench said in remarks directed at the city government.
“The level of PM2.5 and PM10, both are more than prescribed limits. We cannot permit such a state of affairs causing serious environmental pollution to prevail,” the bench said.
A senior official said that a meeting of top environmental experts was under way late yesterday following the court’s demand.
Successive Delhi governments have faced flak for failing to clean up the city’s filthy air, ranked as the worst in the world by the World Health Organisation.
Courts have been pushing authorities to act, including ordering a toll tax on the thousands of diesel-guzzling trucks entering the city every night.
Smog levels soar in the winter when thousands of poor people light fires to keep warm.
But unlike Beijing, which also suffers from hazardous haze levels, New Delhi does not issue public health warnings.
The court’s demand comes as global climate change talks continued yesterday in Paris. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has told the summit that rich countries should not force the developing world to abandon fossil fuels completely.
A WHO study of 1,600 cities released last year showed Delhi had the world’s highest annual average concentration of PM2.5 particles, less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter.
PM2.5 particles are linked to higher rates of chronic bronchitis, lung cancer and heart disease as they settle deep in the lungs and can pass into the bloodstream.
“The easterly winds coming towards the city can carry huge moisture. This, along with the pollutants in the air, contributes to smog,” India Meteorological Department (IMD) director B P Yadav said on Tuesday.
Traces of rain were reported in some parts of the city yesterday and the Met department forecasts more foggy days ahead.
Even prior to Diwali, environmentalists expected the air quality to dip to “alarming” levels, and attributed it to crop burning which took place in the northern belt of the country, and carbon emissions from outdated trucks and vehicles.
“During winters, the cool winds trap pollutants in the air close to the earth. It is an issue Delhi has been experiencing. It requires preparedness and progressive action to fight these pollutants,” Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director for research and advocacy at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), said.
Roychowdhury said India “does not have very good forecasting systems”, to precisely predict how bad the air could get in the coming days, but said over the previous years’ experience, levels could hit some lows.
Delhi traffic policeman Ram Pranesh Singh described his job as like inhaling “slow poison”.
“The sweepers dust the sides of the roads, the cars pollute and I am in the middle inhaling the mix from morning to night,” he said as he manned a busy crossing near New Delhi’s presidential palace yesterday.
“We are not given masks... it can be a pretty thankless job,” the 48-year-old said.