Tehran to shut schools for two days due to air pollution

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

Esfandiar Chaharband, the general manager of Tehran's educational office, said 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 has also decided to shut down some polluting factories in Tehran province and also stop selling licences for cars to enter downtown area, Xinhua news agency reported.

During the past days, Iran's government and parliament have made several efforts to solve the 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 government announced plans of decentralising 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.