Primary Schools shut; WFH for 50% govt staff as Delhi grapples with 'severe' pollution

Alarmed by hazardous pollution levels and health warnings, the Delhi government on Friday announced that primary schools will remain shut from Saturday and 50 per cent of its staff will work from home, while private offices have been advised to follow suit.

Delhi's air quality remained "severe" for a second day on the trot, with stubble burning accounting for 30 per cent of the PM2.5 pollution in the capital, according to the Central Pollution Control Board and SAFAR, a forecasting agency under the Ministry of Earth and Sciences.

Over the last few days, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Aam Aadmi Party have traded barbs over the increase in stubble burning in Punjab.

However, on Friday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann owned responsibility for paddy straw burning in the agrarian state and promised to curb the practice by next winter.

The number of stubble burning incidents in Punjab rose 12.59 per cent year-on-year to 26,583 in the last 50 days, with a spurt in such cases after Diwali, according to the latest Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) data.

However, when compared to Punjab, the number of paddy stubble burning events in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi remained lower between September 15 and November 4 this year, the data showed.