(Bloomberg) --
New Delhi's pollution hit hazardous levels on Friday, forcing the city to shut schools and impose emergency measures, and prompting public criticism from Indian business executives over the government's handling of the situation.
With the air quality index as high as 565 in some areas, the Indian capital was the world's most polluted city on Friday morning, according to monitoring firm IQAir. The regional commission for air quality management activated a crisis plan, which includes halting construction works, encouraging the use of public transport and working from home when possible.
Rohan Verma, chief executive officer of the digital mapping company MapmyIndia, said the poor air quality was a policy failure for the Aam Aadmi Party, which rules both Delhi and Punjab state.
“I am going to call out some politicians and political parties — because they promised yet didn't deliver on the matter of Clean Air, and that has meant death, pain and loss of future longevity for millions of people including my and your and everyone's loved ones,” Verma posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
He called on AAP to prove that it had given harvesters to farmers in the northern state to cut back on stubble burning, which is blamed for the pollution and has been steadily increasing over the past few weeks. He also urged citizens and media to use his company's app, which is a homegrown rival to Google Maps, to record geotagged photos and videos of the harvesting machines.
Gurmeet Chadha, managing partner at wealth management firm Complete Circle, called on people to refrain from voting for any political party that offers freebies. The AAP government in Delhi and Punjab subsidizes power for users, while rivals such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party offer similar waivers in other states.
“Don't vote for free electricity, free food, quotas, water etc.,” Chadha said on X. Vote for quality air, water, better infra, healthcare, education and more jobs.”
Children in New Delhi will skip school this week as the government enforced emergency measures to protect the youngest from off-the-charts toxic air.
The concentration of fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, was 523 mg per cubic meter, 104.6 times higher than the recommended World Health Organization guidelines. Long term exposure to these particles, which are about 30 times thinner than a human hair and can penetrate the bloodstream through the lungs, have been linked to chronic heart and respiratory conditions.
Dinesh Raj, a senior paediatrician at Holy Family Hospital in New Delhi, said that he is seeing an uptick in coughing in children, with those already suffering from asthma being increasingly hospitalized with acute exacerbation. “Even infants are being brought to outpatient with respiratory symptoms,” he said, adding that children with respiratory infections present more severe symptoms which take longer to settle.
Air pollution from a range of sources, including road traffic, construction and biomass burning in agrarian states contributed to nearly 1.7 million deaths across India in 2019, according to The Lancet journal. Children are particularly at risk as air pollution affects their lung development and heightens mortality risk for those under five.
Typically, air quality in Delhi deteriorates between October and November due to a mix of factors including weather patterns, emissions, and low temperatures which prevent pollutants from dispersing. Mumbai is also recording high pollution, prompting the Indian cricket board to ban the traditional firework display during the ongoing Cricket World Cup, the Indian Express reported.
On Friday, the world's second-most polluted city was Lahore, in India's neighbor Pakistan, with an air quality index at 335. While Asia remains a hotspot of pollution, concerns over the health impacts of poor air quality are growing around the world, with major cities in the US and Canada experiencing pollution levels similar to Delhi's due to wildfires, an occurrence likely to become more frequent due to climate change.
--With assistance from Faseeh Mangi, Swati Gupta and Sankalp Phartiyal.
(Updates with comments from company executives.)
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