Delhi Chief Minister Atishi on Thursday announced that the primary schools in Delhi will be shifting to online classes. The announcement of the Delhi government comes as the Air Quality Index (AQI) in Delhi dipped to 'severe' category on Thursday morning with a reading of 428 at 9 am. 

 

"Due to rising pollution levels, all primary schools in Delhi will be shifting to online classes, until further directions," Delhi CM Atishi said in a post on X. The average AQI of the past 24 hours, which is recorded at 4 PM, stood at 424.




The Directorate of Education (DoE) has asked the heads of all government, private, Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) schools to discontinue offline classes for children up to Class 5.


All the heads of government, aided and unaided private recognised schools of the DoE, MCD, NDMC in Delhi are hereby directed to discontinue physical classes in schools for children up to Class 5, it said in a statement. The DoE has also instructed the heads of schools to ensure classes in online mode for students of these classes till further orders.


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Delhi's Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) Sub-Committee announced that Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) Stage III will be imposed in Delhi from 8:00 am from Friday (November 15) amid the deteriorating air quality.


The measures under the third stage of the GRAP include shifting schools up to Class 5 to online mode. GRAP for the National Capital Region (NCR) is classified under four different stages of adverse air quality in Delhi: Stage I -- 'poor' (AQI 201-300); Stage II -- 'very poor' (AQI 301-400); Stage III -- 'severe' (AQI 401-450); and Stage IV -- 'severe plus' (AQI >450).