With a lethal haze already beginning to strangle the provincial capital, the administration of Punjab province ordered all special education schools in Lahore to send students with conditions prone to poor air on a three-month leave of absence starting today.

The government has deemed haze a "calamity," and Lahore recorded an alarming Air Quality Index (AQI) of 201 on Thursday, the second highest in the world.

According to a notification, the government has outlawed a number of activities that contribute to pollution in the province, such as burning solid trash, tires, rubber, plastics, crop residue of any kind, and vehicles that generate visible smoke and pollutants that fall below permissible standards.

This year's early pollution strike also led Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz to seek coordination with neighboring Indian Punjab, which has been dealing with the same issue for a long time, along with India's capital, Delhi.

In its most recent study, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-Pakistan offered a number of medium- and long-term suggestions to address the problems associated with smog.

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These consist of enhancing farmers' ability to manage crop residue, encouraging the use of renewable energy sources and enforcing adherence in the industrial sector, utilizing inexpensive sensor-based monitoring systems that are capable of accurately measuring pollutants, requiring vehicle emission testing, and implementing integrated traffic management.

According to the research, burning crop residue, industrial activities, coal combustion, and vehicle emissions were the main causes of the deteriorating air quality.

It also lays out a strategy to build sustainable development models, separate industrial zones, increase mass transport networks, encourage electric vehicles (EVs), and transition to renewable energy sources.