The Delhi Government on Saturday announced that it has notified a draft policy under the Environment (Protection) Act 1986, has notified a draft policy on Friday, to mandate all aggregators and delivery service providers to adopt electric vehicles in their newly onboarded fleets for operations.

With this, Delhi has become the first Indian state to adopt an aggregator policy to regulate vehicular emissions from the ride-hailing industry.

Environment Minister Gopal Rai said the Delhi government has taken a robust initiative to combat air pollution. “The draft policy has been placed for public opinion for 60 days,” Rai said. “The policy will provide a necessary push to the aggregator industry to become environment friendly,” he added.

According to the Delhi government, aggregators and delivery services would need to ensure 10 percent  of all new two-wheelers and five percent of all new four-wheelers are electric in the next three months.

“Aggregators and delivery services will have to ensure 50% of all new two-wheelers and 25% of all new four-wheelers are electric by March 2023,” Rai said.

Reena Gupta, advisor to the Environment Minister, while talking about the draft policy mentioned, “The essence of the proposed policy by the GNCTD is to ensure the entire spectrum of vehicles used by aggregators and delivery service providers are brought into the fold of a sustainable, clean and electric mobility, given the impact of large-scale adoption of clean vehicles and the serious concern over the air quality of

Delhi.”

It is noteworthy that Delhi Government has been taking effective vehicular pollution initiatives throughout, including measures like better traffic management system, augmentation in public transport system, generating mass awareness, drives for checking adulteration, implementation of stringent emission norms for both new and in-use vehicles, an efficient PUCC system, improvement in vehicular technology, improvement in the quality of fuels, and switching over to cleaner vehicles.