In response to the prevailing air pollution concerns, the Delhi Government announced an early winter break in schools from November 9 to 18 amid severe air pollution in the national capital. The Government has also banned the entry of application-based commercial cabs such as Ola and Uber that are not registered in Delhi and also deferred the implementation of the odd-even car rationing scheme till the time the Supreme Court (SC) reviews its effectiveness in curbing air pollution and issues an order in that regard.

Environment Minister Gopal Rai on Wednesday said the Delhi government will implement the odd-even car rationing scheme after the Supreme Court reviews its effectiveness. Addressing a press conference, Rai said that the Delhi government would submit the outcomes of two major studies conducted by the Chicago-based Energy Policy Institute of the University and the Delhi Technical University to determine the effectiveness of the odd-even scheme for the perusal of the Supreme Court. “A call will be taken to implement the odd-even scheme only after the Supreme Court reviews its effectiveness and issues an order,” the minister said. The Delhi government had announced the implementation of the odd-even scheme from November 13 to 20.

The entry of app-based taxis into Delhi has also been banned as per the Supreme Court’s order, the minister said. The minister also said that the Delhi government has issued directives to the Delhi Pollution Control Committee to restart the Connaught Place smog tower at full capacity and release the remaining funds to IIT Kanpur to resume a study to identify different sources of pollution in the capital. Rai said that a special drive will be conducted to check open burning of waste in Delhi, with 611 teams set up for this purpose. The minister mentioned that the Supreme Court had also said diesel cars with orange stickers should be banned.

“We have asked the transport department to examine how many such vehicles are there. Under the GRAP guidelines, BS-III and BS-IV diesel vehicles are already banned and the transport department has been asked to examine how many BS-VI diesel vehicles are there and if they are banned and (if) odd-even is implemented what will be its impact,” Rai said.

Meanwhile, the Delhi government on Wednesday rescheduled the December winter break of all schools and said it will be now from November 9 to November 18 as the air pollution in the national capital continues to remain in the ‘severe’ category.

Earlier, due to the deteriorating air quality, holidays were announced from November 3 to November 10. The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Environment Minister Gopal Rai and attended by Education Minister Atishi, Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot and senior Delhi government officials. The decision to bring forward the vacation - normally in December-January - was made to protect children’s health. The Nov 9-18 holiday will be adjusted against the traditional December-January break.

In a circular issued by the Directorate of Education, Delhi government, it said, “In the wake of implementation of GRAP-IV measures due to Severe Air Quality prevailing in Delhi and seeing that no respite from such adverse weather conditions in near future is predicted by the IMO, the Winter Break for the session 2023-24 is ordered to be preponed so that schools can be totally closed and both children and teachers can stay at home.

“Accordingly, all schools shall observe Winter Break wef. 09th November 2023 (tomorrow) to 18th November 2023 (Saturday).

Further orders in the remaining portion of winter break will be issued in due course of time,” it stated. Delhi Education Minister Atishi had on Sunday announced the closure of primary classes of all schools until November 10 and said schools have the option of teaching online for classes 6 to 12.

Reacting to the announcement, the principal of ITL public school, Sudha Acharya, said that scheduled school activities got hampered and several events had to be postponed because of it.

“The Government thinks that shutting down school is the only option. Tests for classes 10 and 12 were supposed to be held from November 16, and the annual function was supposed to take place on November 24 but now we have postponed it all,” Acharya said.

Sant Ram of Government School Teachers Association said while the order is fine from the students’ point of view as pollution would affect their health, it is also hampering their studies.

“If we see this from students’ point of view, the order is a welcome step. However, the government should have planned it because shutting down schools means it will be an additional burden on teachers to finish the syllabus in a short period,” Ram said.

According to data from the Decision Support System, a numerical model-based framework capable of identifying sources of particulate matter pollution in Delhi, stubble burning in neighbouring states, especially Punjab and Haryana, accounted for 38 per cent of the air pollution in Delhi on Wednesday.

It is likely to be 27 per cent on Thursday. According to the Ministry of Earth Sciences’ Air Quality Early Warning System for Delhi-NCR, the region is likely to experience ‘severe’ air quality for another five to six days.