2 Lakh diesel vehicles go off road in Delhi

The order covers all diesel vehicles older than 15 years.  Along with barring them from the roads, the NGT has also banned them from being parked in the capital.

Key highlights of the imposed ban
• The transport department has created a list of deregistered vehicles. The number totals to about 1.91 lakh.
• The list has been sent to the traffic police along with instructions to impound them immediately.
• It included details like:
- Name of the vehicle’s owner
- Vehicle’s registration number and address
- Location of the regional transport office where it was registered
• The act will be carried out under section 207 of the Motor Vehicles (MV) Act.
• Those found violating the order will be issued challans under section 39/192 of the Motor Vehicles Act.
• The violators would also have to pay a fine of 2000 rupees.
• The impounded vehicles will be kept at locations decided by the transport department, of which 21 have already been identified but they will not be enough to accommodate all 2 Lakh vehicles.
• The traffic pits, where the vehicles are taken to immediately after, have the capacity of holding only 1000-2000 heavy vehicles at a time.  
• To make the process smoother, the traffic officers have requested the government to provide additional land space.

Besides this, the transport department also prepared a list of diesel vehicles aged between 10 and 15 years, which totals to about a lakh. These vehicles will also be deregistered once the NGT issues orders.

The phasing out of these vehicles is a subsequent step to bring down the alarmingly high level of air pollution in the capital city. The government had in the first week of November 2016 issued a ban on construction and demolition activities and also on overloaded trucks not meant for the city.

The ban on diesel vehicles has however had a negative impact on the 100 crore rupees worth business in Delhi.