Already short of resources, the Delhi Fire Services (DFS) is not being able to register 60 brand new fire tenders purchased in April this year and are lying unused in at the Fire Management Training Academy in Rohini. The reason: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked the fire department to submit an affidavit ensuring that no fire tender older than 10 years is being used.
The department now plans to move the Supreme Court against the NGT order. The department has around 200 vehicles of which around 100 are more than 10 years old.
The fire department had approached the National Green Tribunal (NGT), seeking registration of its new vehicles, as the green panel had last year banned registration of new diesel vehicles as well as their re-registration after 10 years. But the NGT directed the fire department to file an affidavit before the green court that its department does not have any vehicle older than 10 years to get permission to register the new vehicles with the transport department.
According to a senior fire official, the DFS had bought 60 new vehicles in April this year, but these can be registered only after the department phases out the over 10-year-old automobiles.
“We will be filing a petition in the Supreme Court in a few days seeking permission for registration of new vehicles purchased in April this year,” a senior Delhi Fire Service official said.
“The fire department had purchased 60 new fire tenders in April and they are lying unused at the Fire Management Training Academy in Rohini,” the official said.
The DFS officials claimed that the fire department at present had 220 diesel-run vehicles and it purchased 60 new diesel vehicles at a cost of Rs 14 crore.