The Delhi Government’s odd-even experiment faced the litmus test on Monday and came out on top as Delhiites by and large complied with the scheme and just 1,231 vehicles were challaned for flouting the rule.
Contrary to apprehensions that the day would see chaos on the roads with millions of people resuming work after a long weekend, the traffic flow was smooth.
However, people coming to Delhi from Gurgaon had a tough time as the whole of NH8 was jammed on the Gurgaon side reportedly due to enforcement of odd-even restrictions.
Apart from this, some old pictures of traffic chaos and jam-packed metro stations that went viral on the social media also created some panic in the city.
But on the whole, things went well as Delhiites fell in line with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Government’s ambitious scheme to curb vehicular pollution in the city.
However, it is still not certain if the scheme is meeting its main purpose of reducing pollution as the air quality of the city remained abysmal even on Monday with authorities recording pollutants, eight to ten times above the safe limits in real time. Experts, however, said that mainly atmospheric factors might be responsible for the same.
The city’s roads were congestion-free on Monday and traffic moved smoothly throughout the day. That also led to the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses running on schedule with a reduced travel time for round trips.
While most DTC and cluster buses ran below their maximum capacity, Delhi Metro also saw ridership trends similar to December. Till 8 pm, the total ridership on Monday was over 22.5 lakh compared to 20.5 lakh last Monday.
However, while the odd-even scheme was largely successful on Monday,
there was a significant rise in the number of prosecutions as compared to the first two days. Nearly 1,800 vehicles were challaned on Monday compared to a little more than 500 challans on Friday and Saturday.
Special Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Dr Muktesh Chander said that Delhi Traffic Police issued challans to 1,040 vehicles till 8 pm on Monday for odd-even violations. Meanwhile, 33 Sub-District Magistrates (SDMs) issued a total of 766 challans. Out of these, the most number of challans were issued in South Delhi (150 challans) followed by West Delhi (123).
Meanwhile, some panic was created on the social media as miscreants posted pictures showing a jam-packed and chaotic Rajiv Chowk Metro Station. However Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) chief Mangu Singh cleared the air and confirmed that the ridership did not see any major spike.
“January usually sees a dip in ridership, which was not witnessed today (Monday). So it appears that any increase in ridership due to the odd-even scheme just compensated that anticipated dip,” he said.
Reacting to the panic created by the pictures being circulated on the social media, Transport Minister Gopal Rai said: “There were attempts to spread misinformation and misguide people by circulating old and false pictures of overcrowded Rajiv Chowk Metro Station in the social media. I spoke to Metro officials and took a feedback from 50 stations, and we were informed that the crowd on Monday was less than the peak crowd recorded in December in the past and the picture which was posted was of October 22 (Dussehra).”
Claiming that the third day of the scheme was just as successful as the earlier two, Rai said: “There were doubts about what would happen on Monday when all the offices would open. Some people feared that public transport might be overcrowded or there may be violations by drivers, but we have not noticed any such thing.”
On the other hand, though, people travelling to Delhi from Gurgaon had to face a really tough time as the whole of NH8 was jammed on the Gurgaon side reportedly due to enforcement of odd-even restrictions at the border. Many commuters complained of being stuck for hours on the Gurgaon Expressway as well.
Deepak Malhotra, a resident of Pitampura who works in Gurgaon carpooled with his father on Monday, said that he was stuck for around two hours at the Gurgaon toll plaza on the return journey. “While I am complying with the rule and was hoping the journey would be smooth, it was one of the worst days I have experienced on this route,” he said.