Photo: Prami.ap90 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Half of Delhi’s office workforce will be asked to work from home, older vehicles from outside the city will be kept out and parking will cost twice as much under a 10-point winter action plan that Chief Minister Rekha Gupta announced on Tuesday. The measures take effect on November 1 and stay in force until February 28.
Gupta said the plan would be carried out jointly by the Centre, the Delhi government, the Commission for Air Quality Management, the Central Pollution Control Board, the civic bodies, Delhi Police and the Delhi Metro, with public participation at its centre.
What changes for commuters and offices
- Work from home: government and private offices must have 50% of employees work from home, or let staff work from home two days a week. Essential services such as health, public transport, power, water and sanitation are exempt.
- Entry curbs: petrol and diesel vehicles registered outside Delhi that do not meet BS-VI norms will be barred from November 1 to January 31. CNG and electric vehicles are exempt.
- Refuelling checks: the ‘No PUCC, No Fuel’ rule, which pumps began enforcing on October 1, continues at the city’s 500 fuel stations fitted with automatic number plate recognition cameras. Vehicles without a valid pollution certificate, or past their permitted age, will not be refuelled.
- Parking and timings: charges at authorised parking lots will double, though Metro parking is excluded. Municipal offices will work from 8.30 am to 5 pm and Delhi government offices from 10 am to 6.30 pm.
Construction freeze and industrial action
Dust-raising demolition and outdoor civil construction will be banned from November 1 to January 31, and a near-total halt on all construction and demolition, barring essential projects, will apply from December 10 to January 20. Building sites must have full CCTV coverage, and registration on the government’s Malba App will be compulsory for building-plan approvals.
The government said a survey of 11,271 industrial units had led to 2,283 polluting units being sealed or shut. It has 334 enforcement teams working round the clock in two shifts, 98 mechanical road sweepers on the roads, and plans weekly inspections by MPs, MLAs and councillors at 37 identified pollution and traffic hotspots. AI-based monitoring will also be used to catch violations.
Push for public transport
To get people out of private cars, the government has set targets of 72 lakh daily Metro rides and 42 lakh daily trips on DTC buses. The city currently runs 6,840 buses, of which 5,088 are electric. Incentives under the EV Policy 2026 and the Parivartan scheme will be offered to encourage owners to scrap old vehicles.
Why the government is moving early
Every winter, Delhi’s air quality slides into the ‘very poor’ and ‘severe’ range as temperatures drop, winds slow and smoke from crop-residue burning adds to dust and vehicle exhaust. In past years, most curbs kicked in only after air quality had already crashed and the Graded Response Action Plan was triggered. This time the framework was drawn up months in advance and reviewed at a meeting chaired by Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on September 28.
Around this time last year, when pollution levels were high, the public urged us to take strict action, assuring us of their support.
Rekha Gupta, Delhi Chief Minister
The real test, as Gupta herself has acknowledged, will be enforcement on the ground once the rules kick in on November 1, with the stricter construction shutdown following on December 10.
