New Delhi opens first ‘smog tower’; expert says ‘absolute waste’
Al JazeeraMove aims to reduce the air pollution blamed for thousands of premature deaths every year, but experts are sceptical. India’s capital New Delhi has opened its first “smog tower”, aimed at reducing the air pollution blamed for thousands of premature deaths every year, but experts are sceptical. Concentrations of tiny deadly particles in New Delhi’s air regularly exceed safe limits by up to 20 times, particularly in the winter when its 20 million people are enveloped in a noxious grey blanket of smog. “Today is a big day for Delhi in its fight for clean air against pollution,” Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Monday after the inauguration near the busy shopping area of Connaught Place. ‘Futile… absolute waste’ The tower cost $2m and critics say erecting a sufficient number to clean the air substantially across the city would cost huge amounts of public money, and that efforts would be better directed at the sources of the smog.