The on-the-spot pollution “reality test” called by the Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai on Tuesday seems to have failed its purpose. Only two out of the 78 diesel vehicles that showed up for the test at Burari Transport Authority were older than 10 years.
The Minister had, however, announced last week that 100 vehicles older than 10 years, and 100 less than 10 years, would be tested to find a scientific and comparative analysis of the relation between age of the vehicles and their emission levels.
“We had sent an open call to the truck drivers that if you feel your vehicles are fit to ply on roads, you can come and get them tested till 5 pm. But if they do not want to be given the approval, what can we do. But tomorrow no one can claim that their vehicles were fit and we didn’t check them,” said Rai.
Since the whole exercise was aimed at finding out the reality behind the transporter associations’ claim that merely the age of the vehicles doesn’t determine their pollution levels, the exercise won’t yield substantial results in the absence of proportional number of old trucks. Out of the 78 trucks that were tested, only two were more than 10 years old. Overall, 10 out of the 78 vehicles failed the test.
While many independent transport operators denied knowledge of the drive, Rajinder Kapoor, secretary general of Delhi Goods Transport Association, blamed fear of losing their vehicles and the recent Supreme Court order upholding the NGT ban on all 15 year old vehicles for the low turnout. “While the SC order may not be relevant in this context, many truck drivers feared that their trucks will be impounded if they enter Delhi. Many trucks didn’t come because of that as well. Also, because of the uncertainty as to when the ban will be enforced again is also stopping them to come to Delhi,” he said.
SP Singh, senior fellow of Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training, who was one of the invited observers for the pollution checking exercise along with from NGT appointed commissioners, transport unions and others, said that the whole exercise seemed futile.
“It’s not possible for us to endorse it. The purpose of the exercise was to compare pollution levels of old and newer trucks. But if there’s only one old trucks for tens of newer ones, how can it be a valid comparison,” asked Singh, adding that everyone wants to arrive at a solution where everyone’s concerns are addressed. “We want to lower the pollution level and at the same time, we want to address the issues of those who depend on the transport industry. But if the stakeholders themselves won’t show interest, there can’t be anything that NGT can do. This whole exercise was conducted on their (transporters’) request, and yet only one vehicle older than 10 years has showed up till 2 pm while we have been waiting since 9 in the morning. And even that truck is with Haryana number,” he said, questioning if the NGT order is affecting thousands of trucks, why did it turn out to be so hard to get a 100 of them for the exerciseIJ
The on-the-spot pollution check was conducted after transport associations had requested Transport Minister Gopal Rai to intervene in the issue of NGT ban on old diesel vehicles in Delhi-NCR.
NGT had later stayed the ban for two weeks, and
had called for scientifically backed arguments from the
Government as to why such vehicles should not be
banned. Gopal Rai would be producing the results of the test in front of the NGT panel for further action.