NEW DELHI -- New Delhi's efforts to warn residents about unhealthy spikes in air pollution levels in real time will soon end after a government decision to delay releasing the data by at least a day, ostensibly to authenticate it.
"The unified system, expected to be in position in maximum two weeks' time, will ensure authentic air quality information of Delhi to public at large," said a statement issued Tuesday by India's Ministry of Environment and Forests.
The change is intended to ensure that the many government departments monitoring Delhi's air "follow a uniform scientific calibration protocol and validation process."
New Delhi's air is the world's most toxic, according to global rankings. Awareness of the problem among the city's elites has surged in recent months, leading to growing uneasiness in the diplomatic, expatriate and wealthy Indian communities.
Information about pollution levels in India also has increased international pressure on the country to contribute to efforts to slow climate change.
Instead of taking measures to improve Delhi's air, officials are now simply trying to suppress information about it, Sarath Guttikunda, director of Urban Emissions, an independent research group based in Delhi, said Wednesday.
The city's data are "not that reliable to begin with," Guttikunda said. "And blocking that data from coming out in real time and somehow correcting it in some back office will only make it even more unreliable."
B. Kumar, who retired in 2013 as a co-director of the New Delhi pollution committee and who helped create the present monitoring system, said Wednesday that the current system works well.
"It's totally automatic, and the data is transferred directly from the machines to the website, so there's nothing to authenticate," Kumar said. "If they feel there is a problem, they could just check the equipment and see what needs to be solved."
An estimated 1.5 million people die annually in India, about one-sixth of all Indian deaths, as a result of outdoor and indoor air pollution. The indoor pollution is in part attributed to the widespread use of cow dung as cooking fuel.
The country has the world's highest death rate from chronic respiratory diseases, and more deaths from asthma than any other nation, according to the World Health Organization.
Information for this article was contributed by Suhasini Raj of The New York Times.
A Section on 03/12/2015