New Delhi gears up for car ban to cut smog

Police and volunteers will monitor vehicles at checkpoints across city

Millions of Delhi residents will have to find alternative ways to work beginning on Friday, when authorities launch a trial of draconian traffic restrictions to try to clean up the world's most polluted capital.

Private cars will be banned from the roads on alternate days from Jan 1 as part of a slew of measures aimed at reducing smog levels that include shutting some coal-fired power plants and vacuuming roads to reduce dust.

The Delhi government announced the scheme after a court ordered authorities to tackle pollution levels more than 10 times the World Health Organization's safe limits.

It will run for an initial two-week trial period, but many commuters fear the government will have little choice but to introduce a longer-term ban given the scale of the problem.

However, some critics warn the measures will be unenforceable in a city where traffic rules are already routinely flouted.

Many believe Delhi residents will deploy the famed Indian skill of jugaad - creating a cheap alternative solution - by forging number plates or buying second cars.

"The biggest challenge is to make people realize that this fight against pollution is for them, for their health, for their own good," said Delhi's Transport Minister Gopal Rai.

"They will only be cheating themselves with 'jugaad'. There is no magic button that will make the pollution disappear. We must act now."

To cope with the extra pressure on the public transport network, Delhi's government has hired around 3,000 private buses to provide shuttle services into the city from residential areas.

Schools have been ordered to remain closed until the trial ends on Jan 15 so that their buses can be pressed into action.

$30 fine

Traffic police and 10,000 volunteers will monitor cars at checkpoints across the city and violators will be fined 2,000 rupees ($30) - extremely steep for the average resident.

Around 8.5 million vehicles clog up Delhi's roads and 1,400 new cars are being added every day as the city's residents become more affluent.

That has contributed to Delhi being the most polluted of 1,600 cities around the world that were surveyed by the World Health Organization last year.

Delhi's air quality drops dramatically during winter when farmers in neighboring states burn crop stubble, while poor residents light fires to keep warm and the colder air traps pollutants in the atmosphere.

The city has in recent weeks been enveloped in a toxic soup that has cut visibility and pushed PM 2.5 levels more than 10 times over the WHO's recommended safe limit.