DHAKA: India’s environment court has slammed the government over the capital’s horrendous air pollution, which it said was ‘getting worse’ every day, and ordered a string of measures to bring it down.

The National Green Tribunal directed all vehicles older than 15 years be taken off New Delhi roads, pollution checks undertaken for all state-run buses and air purifiers installed at the city’s busy markets.

Environmentalists welcomed Thursday the decision, saying policy makers were failing to heed the ‘emergency’ facing the city of 17 million people.

‘We applaud the tribunal’s urgency on Delhi’s pollution which is reaching toxic levels,’ Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1605 HRS, NOV 27, 2014