Transport Minister Gopal Rai took on the media on Thursday for criticising the odd-even scheme by highlighting high traffic volume on a few roads/junctions. He rued that the media is paining the second phase of the car-rationing scheme as failure.
“While I had appreciated the role played by the media during the first edition of the scheme, this time, they are showing that the scheme has failed. They are doing so only by focusing on six-seven points where high traffic is observed. However, the rest of the Delhi has no such problems and people are taking less time to travel,” he said.
He further took on “editors and bosses” in the media houses as he said, “I travel on the roads of the city and observe something and form an opinion about how odd-even is doing. You reporters also visit the field and see what is going on. There may be difference in our opinions but it is based on real experience. But the media bosses stay inside their air-conditioned rooms and decide if odd-even is doing well or not.”
He made an appeal to them to conduct a survey of Delhi residents to find out if the scheme is successful or not instead of deciding it while sitting inside “air-conditioned rooms”.