Tehran to close schools, kindergartens due to air pollution

Tehran's educational office announced Saturday that schools and kindergartens in the Iranian capital will be closed Sunday and Monday due to the alarming high air pollution in the city, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Esfandiar Chaharband, the general manager of Tehran's educational office, told IRNA that the decision was made following the meeting of Tehran's air pollution committee due to alarming air pollution in the city over the past days.

The committee also decide to shut down some pollutant factories in Tehran province and also stop selling licences for the cars to enter downtown, Chaharband was quoted as saying.

During the past days, Iran's governments and parliament have made several efforts to solve air pollution problem in Tehran, including imposing restrictions on the traffic flow in the city, passing laws to urge for safer fuel and to replace old, inefficient cars with new ones.

Also, the Iranian governments announced plans of decentralizing policies in the country in a move to slow down the accumulation of people and industries in the capital to a considerable degree. However, the plans were left unimplemented for unannounced reasons. Endit