Delhi Pollution: Schools may remain shut from 1 to 15 January in the city

The Delhi government has announced that it is considering shutting schools in the city between 1 and 15 January to keep children from being affected by the bad air quality in the national capital. This will also free up school buses for public use - in a bid to help Delhi residents adhere to the odd-even formula.

"We will only take decisions after consulting schools. We have 26 lakh children in Delhi schools, they are big stakeholders. There has been a proposal to shut schools between 1st to 15th January. We are considering it," Delhi education minister and deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia told NDTV.

Private schools in the city have reportedly announced a number of measures to protect students from the rising pollution levels. Some schools have reportedly postponed their annual events and have advised children stay indoors in the morning.

In order to enhance the public transport network in the city to ease the experimental 2-week long odd-even formula, the government is a planning to rope in 6,000 private buses to ply in the city.

Since about 2,000 of them will be school buses, a call has been made to close the schools during the period.