Delhi officials unveil giant public air freshener to scrub atmosphere clean

Officials in Delhi have unveiled a radical solution to tackle the increasingly noxious smog hanging over the city: a giant public air freshener that scrubs the atmosphere clean.

The seven-tonne Systemlife Citta costs about 25 million rupees (£357,000). It sucks in 10,000 cubic metres of dirty air an hour, subjects it to a filtering process, and then emits clean air.



Delhi officials say that more of the machines will be bought if the current one, installed at one of Delhi’s busiest traffic junctions as part of a pilot project, proves a success. “We will evaluate its efficacy after three months,” P.K. Sharma, health chief of the New Delhi Municipal Council, said. “If it works, we will buy more.”

Delhi is the second dirtiest city in the world in terms of the amount of particulate matter in the atmosphere, according to the World Bank.



A brown haze often lingers over the Indian capital — a smudgy cloud linked by analysts to increasing rates of asthma.

Only in Cairo is the air grimier. Another Indian city, Calcutta, is in third place. Globally, air pollution claims about two million lives a year, according to the World Health Organisation.