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The Delhi government has temporarily banned the entry of app-based taxis from different states entering the national capital as the air quality continues to deteriorate. The move comes after the Supreme Court pointed out that several taxis with number plates from different states were operating and carrying only one passenger.

Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, Delhi transport minister Gopal Rai said that the department has been ordered to ban such taxis in line with the SC observations.

Following the decision, app-based cabs with Delhi number plates will only operate in the city.

It’s worth highlighting that many people depend on app-based taxis, like Ola and Uber, to come to Delhi for work and other purposes from nearby cities like Gurugram, Noida, Faridabad, and Ghaziabad, also part of the National Capital Region (NCR). These commuters are going to be severely impacted by the move.

The Delhi-NCR has been facing poor air quality for a few weeks, as governments have failed to curb stubble burning in nearby states. This problem has been ongoing for several years and usually occurs around the onset of the winter season. At the time of writing this piece, AQI (air quality index) in Delhi is labelled “hazardous” by Aqcin, a real-time AQI monitoring platform.

While there has been much politics and blame-game around stubble burning, the local government has come up with a few more temporary solutions to curb pollution. This includes odd-even and banning BS4 diesel cars.