Task to phase out 15 year old vehicles will not be easy for Delhi govt

The Delhi government faces a mammoth task of de-registering about 19 lakh diesel vehicles in the national capital that are over 15 years old. The National Green Tribunal in its July 20 order had asked the transport department to immediately de-register diesel vehicles that are over 15 years old and those that comply with the BS-I and BS-II emission standards. Diesel vehicles more than 15 years old shall be scrapped and no NOC shall be issued for transfer of these vehicles, the order said.

A Delhi government official said that the de-registration process will be carried out in a phased manner and a public notice will be issued soon to this effect. “Once the NGT’s order is received by us, it will be circulated to all the MLOs to be implemented and a formal notice will be issued in this regard,” he said.

The ban will, however, be an enormous task to execute as the city has about 19 lakh diesel vehicles that are older than 15 years. Once de-registered, it will be illegal for these vehicles to ply on the city roads and the violating vehicles will be impounded. However, the official admitted that it is not feasible for either the government or the traffic police to impound such a large number of vehicles due to space crunch to keep them.

“The DDA has not yet provided the land to keep the impounded vehicles. The only space available presently is at Burari, which can accommodate 500-1000 vehicles,” the official said. Apart from the unavailability of space, the law enforcement agencies also face a huge task of keeping the violators in check. “The government will start a campaign to make people aware so that the number of violators is reduced,” he said.

The NGT order also states that these vehicles should not be given no objection certificate to either ply in the national capital region or be sold off to other states. In effect, these vehicles will be treated as scrap.

Automobile industry experts, however, argue that the tribunal’s order does not have a legal sanctity as under the Motor Vehicles Act, you cannot take a vehicle off the roads based on its age. “The government has not fixed any age for the road worthiness of a vehicle in the Motor Vehicles Act, which can only be done by the Centre and not by any state government. Due to this, it is very rare that a vehicle is not re-registered after 15 years period for which the road tax is paid,” an automobile industry expert on conditions of anonymity said. He also pointed out that the country does not have the required infrastructure to phase out the old vehicles. “It should first be ordered to set-up inspection and certification centres to device the road worthiness of a vehicle. A city like Delhi needs at least 25 such centres. Once these centres are set-up, the scrappage centres will automatically come up, which can then recycle these vehicles. Due to the lack of an organised scrapping mechanism in the country at present, dump vehicles often land up at places such as Mayapuri where they are scrapped by employing a rudimentary process in the most environment unfriendly way as possible. Ironically, this will defeat the very purpose of the ban on old vehicles to reduce emissions in the city,” he added.

Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director at the Delhi-based environment think tank Centre for Science and Environment, suggested that the government can turn to the best practices adopted across the world in phasing out vehicles.

“It could be either done by fixing a time frame like in Paris, which has decided to phase out diesel vehicles manufactured before 2011 by 2020. Measures such as no-emission zones in European countries, which restrict the movement of Euro 1 or Euro 2 vehicles, can also be looked at.”

She pointed that looking at the immediacy of the situation, phasing out of the old vehicles should be a combination of scrapping them and utilising them in the used car markets before ending their life. “As a long term strategy to ensure that polluting vehicles do not find their way on the roads the government will have to find out ways to de-incentivise them or restrict their movement by creating no-entry zones to check emissions. The government will also have to regulate the scrappage and ending of life of a vehicle, where the manufacturers will have to ensure that a vehicle is recycled to its maximum,” she added.