Breath of fresh air: Delhi is building giant ‘smog towers’ to suck up pollution, but will they actually work?

Two towers will be built, and if successful, the Indian government has pledged to build more, reports Namita Singh in Delhi

An Indian man walks up stairs as Delhi’s skyline is seen enveloped in smog and dust (AP)

Delhi’s pollution season has arrived. Announcing itself with a dramatic dip in visibility and soaring numbers on the air quality index (AQI), a thick quilt of smog has wrapped itself around the capital city and there it shall remain, based on the bitter experience of recent years, until around March.

This year, the pollution crisis is being talked about with a greater sense of urgency because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Covid-19, like air pollution, tends to attack the respiratory system, in what Delhi’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has called a “life-threatening” combination.

Ordered to take action by the Supreme Court, Delhi’s devolved government has now come up with a new idea of how to address this chronic issue – it has announced plans to construct a giant air purifier or “smog tower” that sucks up and filters bad air before releasing it back into the environment.