Delhi doubles parking fees as PM2.5 hits 30 times WHO limit

Air pollution in Delhi rose above 30 times the World Health Organization's recommended daily limit in parts of the Indian capital on Wednesday, the same week authorities doubled parking charges and asked employers to let half their staff work from home.

Levels of PM2.5, the fine particles small enough to enter the bloodstream, passed 461 micrograms per cubic metre in parts of the city, according to data from the monitoring firm IQAir cited by the Bangkok Post.

The measures were tightened three days earlier, with restrictions on traffic and construction, the Bangkok Post reported. Nikkei Asia reported that the Delhi administration had doubled parking fees, asked for 50 percent of work to be carried out remotely, and curbed older vehicles and construction activity under a winter action plan. Falling temperatures and slow, dry winds have held the smog over the city, Nikkei Asia reported.

India's environment ministry attributes 27 percent of Delhi's winter pollution to secondary particles, formed when gases from vehicles, industry, power plants and biomass burning react in the atmosphere. Vehicles account for 23 percent, biomass burning including farm stubble fires 20 percent, and industry including coal-fired power plants about nine percent, according to the ministry's figures as reported by the Bangkok Post.

Jacob Koshy, science editor of The Hindu and author of "The Nitrogen Bomb", argued that fertiliser spread on fields around the capital releases ammonia that gives other pollutants a base to react with. "The sheer quantity of ammonia that is going into the atmosphere creates a base layer for other pollutants to react with," he said, according to the Bangkok Post.

The city of more than 30 million people faces Diwali on Sunday, when firework displays add to the pollution. The Supreme Court this month allowed limited use of so-called "green" firecrackers, designed to reduce emissions, but the Bangkok Post reported that such restrictions are routinely flouted.

A study published in The Lancet Planetary Health in 2024 estimated that 3.8 million deaths in India between 2009 and 2019 were linked to air pollution, the Bangkok Post reported.

Nikkei Asia reported that experts called successful implementation of the winter plan challenging and said action was needed year-round, not only in the winter months.