New Delhi: “Is Delhi still fit to be India’s national capital,” questioned Congress MP Shashi Tharoor as pollution soared to extremely severe levels in the national capital on Tuesday. The post by the Thiruvananthapuram MP on X sparked a debate on social media, with several users suggesting a shift to one of the southern cities like Chennai or Hyderabad, where the air is significantly cleaner.
“Delhi is officially the most polluted city in the world, 4x Hazardous levels and nearly five times as bad as the second most polluted city, Dhaka. It is unconscionable that our government has been witnessing this nightmare for years and does nothing about it. I have run an Air Quality Round Table for experts and stakeholders, including MPs, since 2015 but gave up last year because nothing seemed to change and no one seemed to care. This city is essentially uninhabitable from November to January inclusive and barely livable the rest of the year. Should it even remain the nation’s capital?”, read his tweet
Earlier in 2022, Indonesia passed legislation to shift its capital from Jakarta, notorious for its poor air quality, to Nusantara due to a mix of environmental challenges and climate concerns. The new capital city, about 1,000 km from Jakarta, is still under construction and a complete shift is expected only by 2045.
For this, President Joko Widodo’s government has estimated a cost of $35 billion or Rs 2.905 lakh crore. Up to 1.9 million people are also expected to be relocated to Nusantara by 2045.
Air Pollution In Delhi Today
As Delhi’s average air quality index (AQI) continued to be in the ‘severe’ category Wednesday, Environment Minister Gopal Rai announced that 50 per cent of the state government’s employees would be working from home.
Wednesday is be the third consecutive day when the AQI of Delhi-NCR stood in the ‘severe’ zone.
While the average AQI of Delhi stood at 423 at 7 am, the most polluted area in the city was Mundka (464), followed by Wazirpur and Alipur (462). The visibility at IGI Airport was 800 metres as of 7 am.
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