Pollution-choked New Delhi begins car rationing
Digital Reporter
Saturday, January 2, 2016, 1:31 PM - Delhi is finally putting into motion a car rationing plan, hoping to get some vehicles off the streets of what is proverbially the world's most polluted major city.
Beginning on New Years Day, private cars with odd and even number plates will have to alternate days, for an initial trial period of two weeks, between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., Monday to Saturday.
"The biggest challenge is to make people realise that this fight against pollution is for them, for their health, for their own good," Gopal Raj, Delhi's transport minister Gopal Rai told the AFP news agency.
The plan comes with numerous exemptions. Among them:
- Emergency vehicles
- Cars carrying disabled people
- Women, when accompanied either by another woman or a child under 12
- Two wheeled vehicles
- Cars running on natural gas
- Cars driving someone to the hospital in a medical emergency
The government is also trying to improve access, at least temporarily, to public transit, hiring thousands of buses and postponing school classes for two weeks to free up school buses.
While environmental activists have welcomed the move, critics say the city's public transit system is just not up to the task of accommodating riders forced to leave the car at home.
Despite China's reputation for poor air quality, India's cities dominate the top of the World Health Organization's ranking of cities with the highest concentration of PM2.5 -- particles 2.5 micrograms in width, small enough to lodge and accumulate in the lungs.
In 2014, Delhi's PM2.5 concentration was 153 parts per million. Beijing, by contrast, was at 56. The WHO recommends a level of 10 PPM or less.
