The Delhi high court on Thursday asked the Centre and city government to explore the possibility of setting up a committee headed by senior officials of to work out a plan to ensure that only CNG cabs run in the National Capital Region (NCR) to address vehicular pollution problem.
Justice Manmohan suggested setting up of the committee, comprising the Union Cabinet Secretary, Delhi chief secretary and secretaries of transport, petroleum and environment, as the issue of vehicular pollution was not confined to Delhi only and would include its neighbouring cities also.
Central government standing counsel Manish Mohan and additional standing counsel for Delhi government, Naushad Ahmed Khan, told the court that they would seek instructions from their respective administrations on this issue and would inform it by the next date of hearing on December 15.
The court, meanwhile, directed app-based cab service providers, including Ola and Uber, to give details, including registration numbers, of all the vehicles registered with each of them.
These details are to be given in a sealed cover and shall remain sealed to protect confidentiality of the information, the court said.
It also directed the companies, which have been granted an interim protection from the January 1 ban order of Delhi government, to give details of how they were going to phase out the diesel cabs with them as only CNG cabs would be allowed to run in the national capital.
The Delhi government had on January 1 banned the operation of app-based cab services till they complied with the guidelines of Radio Taxi Scheme of 2006, which was amended on December 26 last year.
Uber told the court it has started phasing out diesel cabs and would completely phase them out by March 1, 2016. A similar statement was made by Taxi For Sure, a subsidiary of Ola.
Ola said it has already phased out diesel cabs and was using only CNG ones for point-to-point service in Delhi.
The court was hearing a plea filed by Association of Radio Taxis, represented by senior advocate Nidesh Gupta, who contended that the court’s order upholding a ban on diesel cabs providing point-to-point service in the national capital was not being uniformly implemented.
The court had on October 14 allowed app-based cab firms to ply diesel-run taxis from point-to-point in the national capital till March 1 next year by when they will have to shift completely to CNG.
