Taking on the challenging task of enforcing the National Green Tribunal (NGT) ban on diesel vehicles older than 10 years, Delhi Traffic Police (DTP) and Delhi Transport Authority (DTA) are keeping a watch on all 23 entry points to Delhi.
There are over six lakh diesel vehicles registered in Delhi, out of which around 1.53 lakh are more than 10 years old. Impounded vehicles are being parked in the pits of Delhi Police that have a combined capacity of around 9,000 vehicles. The problem is that the impounded vehicles cannot be kept for long in the pits as space is needed for other vehicles seized by Traffic Police for violating the Motor Vehicles Act.
Also the authorities are faced with the arduous task of checking each and every vehicle’s Registration Copy (RC) to determine the age and that is quite time-consuming. It has affected the regulation and enforcement of traffic discipline as well.
As of now, a total of 549 cars, trucks and buses have been impounded by the Delhi Traffic Police. The drive began on April 8 evening, soon after the NGT’s order was circulated. Meanwhile, the Delhi Police Control Room have received calls from many places of fight or scuffle between the traffic policemen and commuters, whose vehicles are being checked or impounded after the NGT’s order.
According to Special Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Muktesh Chander, their men are deployed to impound the vehicles in various areas mostly on borders. “Pits are limited and capacity is less. We will write to the Government about space shortage, if required,” Chander said. Sarita Vihar traffic inspector Ramphal Singh, who was on duty at Badarpur border and had impounded five vehicles till 2 pm on Friday, told The Pioneer that the impounded vehicles from that circle are being sent to the Nehru Place pit.
According to Singh, the Nehru Place pit has the capacity for around 500-700 vehicles, depending on their size. While there are around 40 such pits in Delhi, there are over six lakh diesel vehicles registered in the State out of which, over 1.5 lakh are estimated to be older than 10 years. Clearly, Delhi Traffic Police doesn’t have enough space to keep all those vehicles if impounded.
“Currently, we are impounding those vehicles that we find to be more than 10 years old, but once the Nehru Place pit is full, we would have to let go of any offending vehicle. Where would we keep themIJ It’ll become the responsibility of the impounding officer,” added inspector Singh.
Twenty nine-year-old Sunil Singh, driver of one of the impounded vehicles with an Uttar Pradesh registration number claimed to be unaware of the NGT ban. Another driver, Raju Kumar (35 years), told The Pioneer that the ban is completely unfair. He said, “10 years is a short period of time. Most vehicle owners are not even able to recover the cost of the vehicle in ten years and are usually still paying the instalments for the same. Government needs to step in. If they cannot lift the ban, they should at least extend the period for which the vehicle can ply on the road.”
While impounding the vehicles is one thing, identifying which vehicles are older than 10 years and which ones are not is proving to be quite a task itself for the enforcing officers. They are mostly relying on guesswork to ascertain the same.
Sub-inspector Virender Pratap, also on duty at Badarpur border, told The Pioneer, “We are stopping those vehicles that look really old and then we check their registration papers. Apart from that, we are also stopping vehicles that break other traffic rules like lane-changing. Even in those cases, some vehicles turn out to be older than 10 years. So we impound them.” This strategy is not foolproof though. Many vehicles that are stopped turn out to be less than 10 years old. And with only a few officers at one site, a lot of vehicles pass while officers are dealing with the stopped vehicle.