Bhiwadi pollution nightmare is worse than Delhi. Nobody wants to talk about it

Bhiwadi: Outdoor assemblies are a thing of history, and games are out of the question with the AQI soaring. So the children huddle inside their private school and settle for chess or karate. “Pollution has stolen children’s daily rituals,” says their math teacher Uma Khandelwal. This isn’t Delhi with its infamous winter smog. This is Rajasthan’s Bhiwadi, an industrial township that’s burgeoned into a real-estate hotspot and upmarket retirement hub over the last few years.

Sitting precariously between the Aravallis and Delhi-NCR, it was sold as the best of both worlds. But daily life here means inhaling sheets of dust, acrid smoke rising from factory stacks, and AQI that routinely matches Delhi’s 300-400 range. And yet, nobody wants to talk about Bhiwadi or other towns like it.

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