Work from home one day a week, says CSIR

The restrictions will apply not only to cars but also to school buses

Even as the Delhi government readies to introduce the odd-even plan for cars to check pollution from January 1, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) proposes an alternative plan — get students and parents to study and work from home on a designated day in the middle of the week.

The rationale of the National Institute of Science Technology And Development Studies (NISTADS), a CSIR body, is that pollution in Delhi tends to accumulate through the week and so, a mid-week halt — for instance, Wednesday — would halt the build-up and make the air more breathable.

Additionally, the restrictions would apply to not only cars but also school buses, be easier to implement and lead to additional energy-savings.

Prashant Goswami, Director, NISTADS, said that cutting the commute for school-goers could help reduce pollution. “There is some indirect evidence in the literature suggesting that, but we would like to establish it empirically too,” he said.

The organisation is looking at a formal research project to measure pollution from vehicles and develop more robust evidence for the proposal.

In-house research

NISTADS said the proposal resulted from in-house research but was led by a broader directive from the CSIR to apply scientific know-how to broader socio-economic problems in India.

“This idea that we have proposed is the first of related ideas that we’re working on,” said Sujit Bhattacharya, a senior Professor at the institute.

“We propose a 2 +1+2 working week in which the third day [Wednesday] will be a day of Virtual Attendance at Work and School (VAWS), with two regular working days before and after. A mechanism of internal monitoring will be in place. This would allow spike of the air pollution to subside during mid-week. VAWS can be easily implemented and monitored through an organised system,” said an institute press release.

The odd-even plan may be harder to implement and less effective than implementing a mid-week reprieve, the institute says.

NISTADS argues for the possible ineffectiveness of the Delhi government’s odd-even restrictions, on the basis of similar policies in China, Mexico and Bogota. .