The National Green Tribunal’s ban on diesel vehicles over 10 years old is a positive step towards fighting air pollution, but there are many implementation challenges that it must deal with. The change has to be gradual
The recent ruling by the National Green Tribunal (NGT), instructing the Regional Transport Office’s in Delhi, to de-register diesel vehicles that are more than 10-year-old, finally adds teeth to the earlier order that banned the same category of vehicles from plying. The NGT has taken this aggressive stance in light of submissions by the Delhi traffic police, which had tried to implement the order, but without any encouraging results.
In fact, as a part of the drive, the traffic police had impounded nearly 3,000 vehicles which promptly resurfaced on Delhi roads after paying the fines as stipulated under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.
Though the NGT’s order spells another victory for the cause of reducing pollution in the national capital, many doubts and implementation challenges overshadow the latest initiative.
Foremost being the fact that there are nearly 5,00,000 diesel vehicles in Delhi, which will make implementation a nightmare. The order will also cause inconvenience to lakhs of people who will have to suddenly sell their vehicles at throwaway prices, akin to a distress sale and embark on an unplanned vehicle purchase. Many consumers will also feel short-changed as they paid life tax for 15 years on their cars, prompting them to take a legal recourse. This will cause yet another hurdle for implementation.
On the industry front, this order will mean a windfall for the automotive majors as they can expect a spike in sales for short-term, but in the long run, this policy will keep the consumers away from diesel variants, thereby putting the automakers’ investment, in diesel technology, in trouble. This in-turn can deter global automobile majors and ancillary manufacturers from investing in India.
Currently, Delhi does not have a scrapping policy due to which these de-registered vehicles will immediately flood the surrounding States, especially the rural areas. This will amount to merely “shifting” the pollution. Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has been aggressively pushing for the vehicle scrapping policy to be implemented, by which, the owners have the choice of scrapping their old BS-I or BS-II vehicles in exchange of new vehicles for a good discount.
This will automatically result in phasing out of older vehicles. The NGT’s order should have coincided with the announcement of the scrappage policy of the Transport Ministry. This would not only have been comfortable for the common man, but would have helped the NGT coordinate with the Government.
Though such rapid developments bodes well for the environment, the people’s well-being, on economic and convenience front, cannot be overlooked. The possibility of such blanket ban was unimaginable when most of the people bought their vehicles, if it were so, many would not have gone ahead with their purchase.
Similarly, there may not be any assurance regarding petrol vehicles and the same can happen to them as well if the NGT finds no improvement in pollution levels. This unpredictability is due to sudden decisions that set the precedent for future and results in people feeling uncertain, besides getting alienated from the cause of environmental conservation.
The efforts of the NGT, in raising awareness for a cleaner environment, so far has been path-breaking, and has in the process, earned immense respect from environmentalists and concerned citizens, but the latest directive borders on being impractical and may dilute the goodwill generated by the Tribunal.
In order to ensure a healthy acceptance and compliance for rules, wholehearted participation of the people is a must, which is possible only if ambiguities are removed. For instance, many people maintain their cars well and ensure that the vehicle is not polluting, but the current rules do not address such vehicles and instead, apply the blanket presumption that all 10-year-old vehicles are polluting.
Cars are an expensive investment, bought after taking loans and not everyone can sell their cars to buy new ones overnight. To make matters worse, the public transport is yet to improve in terms of the quality and connectivity. These concerns and confusions make the common man reticent in following rules that are suddenly applied.
The change has to be gradual, not sudden. Every change brings hurdles, and in this case to overcome them, the NGT must create a facilitating environment that can addresses the concerns of the public, besides setting up a fair price system for surrendered vehicles. In order to create an immediate impact with regards to reducing vehicular pollutions, the NGT can look at cleaning up the vehicle pollution checking process that is riddled with irregularities.
A stringent and corruption free vehicular pollution check certification system will help bring down pollution considerably. Additionally, an effective scrapping policy must also be set up to handle huge volumes of old vehicles. These enabling factors can help the NGT to collaborate with the common man and realise its objectives to preserve and protect the environment.