After complete chaos on Friday night and Saturday morning, collection of Environment Compensation Charge (ECC) as mandated by the Supreme Court was managed relatively better on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday. While long trail of trucks was again witnessed, the situation wasn’t as bad as the first day of collections when a ten-kilometer long traffic jam was witnessed on the NH8 in the early hours of the morning.
A traffic official said while the situation was really bad on the NH8 on Saturday morning, no such congestion was reported on Sunday morning.
A toll official posted at Anand Vihar toll booth told The Pioneer that while there was decrease in the number of vehicles passing through that toll booth, it may have also been due to the fact that it was a Saturday.
“The true picture will emerge on Monday. However, things were certainly better than last night when we made at least 35 trucks turn back from the border. Today, it was just five to eight vehicles that refused to pay the tax and had to be turned back,” he said.
While chaos was expected on the first few days of the implementation of the Supreme Court order, it seems that things may settle down over a few days after transporters realise that there is no alternative to actually paying the charge.
“Some of them will avoid the route and others will cough up the money,” added the toll official.
Meanwhile, it has been estimated that the toll tax contractor hired by South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has been collecting around Rs1.25 crore as ECC every day since the ‘green tax’ was levied on trucks and other commercial vehicles entering Delhi as per a Supreme Court order.
A SDMC official said, “As per initial reports, contractor SMYR is collecting Environment Compensation Charge (ECC) totaling around Rs1.25 crore per day. Exact details of collection are yet to be received as the contractor is working on its software for it.”
Collection of ECC had been started by the contractor as per the Supreme Court order, after a delay of six days, at 124 entry points of the city on the intervening night of November 6-7. Collection of ECC of Rs1,300 from trucks and Rs700 from smaller commercial vehicles was scheduled to begin from November 1 on the order of the Supreme Court.
The apex court, in its order on October 12, had directed the Delhi Government and SDMC to charge ECC from trucks and other smaller commercial vehicles entering the city in a bid to check growing pollution in the national Capital.
The contractor, while agreeing to the responsibility of collecting ECC, had informed the SDMC authorities that the number of commercial vehicles passing through its barriers had gown down by 30 per cent due to the fear of ECC and had asked them to act accordingly to cover the losses.
Earlier, the contractor had refused to collect the green tax citing several “practical problems” and had given a legal notice to SDMC, seeking clarification of 11 issues including fall in toll tax revenue.
As per the estimates of municipal corporation officials, around 50,000 trucks and commercial vehicles enter Delhi every day via various entry points.