Delhi: 6,000 exposed to foul air at celebratory run

NEW DELHI: While schools were closed on Children’s Day on Thursday to avoid exposure of students to the toxic air, more than 6,000 underprivileged children were inexplicably forced to run on a Delhi road in an annual event organised by NGO Prayas . Despite Delhi government advising schools against outdoor activities, the “Run for Children” was flagged off on Thursday morning when the air quality index showed “severe” level of pollution in the city.

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Amod Kanth, founder of Prayas and former chairperson of Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights, said there was no time to call off the run, but claimed the race route was cut short and the cultural programme truncated.

At 6am under an intimidating grey sky, the kids gathered in Chanakyapuri. Only a handful had pollution masks on. There were children as young as six years there for the ninth consecutive year of the marathon’s organisation. “The permission for this event is given by central government bodies and Delhi Police,” Kanth told TOI. “The announcement on closure of school was made only on Wednesday evening, and there was no way we could have informed the participants had we cancelled the event.”

Kanth continued, “We had got permission to use the Vinay Marg-Hyatt Regency Hotel route, but we began and ended the walk on Vinay Marg. We then brought the children to a ground nearby for the cultural programme.” He added that the NGO had to conduct this main programme of Children’s Day because it was a day of celebrating childhood. The participants were all from disadvantaged economic families and looked forward to events like this.

The run naturally attracted a lot of flak on social media, with people calling it a “run for asthma” and asking children to “run away from Delhi”. “Hundreds of children were made to ‘Run for Unity’ in the hazardous air when air pollution level was "severe,” one tweet sneered.

Simran Kaur Mundi, former Miss India, model and actor, flagged off the event when the AQI had docked at 463, with PM2.5 level at 322 micrograms per cubic metre and PM10 at 487, the former five times the safe level of 60 micrograms per cubic metre, the latter again five times the limit of 100.

When air pollution neared 'severe’ levels on Wednesday evening, schools in Delhi-NCR were ordered closed for two days, hours after the pollution management authority, EPCA , recommended a shutdown. Medically, children and infants are more susceptible than adults to air pollution because their biological systems are still developing and their respiratory track is more permeable.