Old vehicles running on CNG exempted from action

New Delhi: End-of-life vehicles (ELV) will not be able to refuel at any city filling station from Tuesday. It had been announced earlier that all ELVs would not only be denied fuel in the capital, but they would also be impounded on the spot and taken for scrapping from July 1. All fuel pumps have been equipped with technology to identify such vehicles, which are petrol-run vehicles older than 15 years and diesel-run vehicles older than 10 years. Only overaged vehicles running on CNG will be exempted from action.

Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras have been installed at 382 petrol and diesel filling stations. ANPR enables real-time recording and tracking of vehicle data through a centralised database. Within microseconds of reading the number plate of a vehicle at a filling station, ANPR will match it with the Vahan data and detect ELVs. The presence of these vehicles will be announced and a nodal officer coordinating with the enforcement team will take action.

Traffic officials stated that they had determined hotspots with a proliferation of ELVs and special teams have been deputed there. Meanwhile, Delhi Police officers reassured on Monday that they would ensure the implementation of the policy in a peaceful manner and do not expect any law and order situation at any retail outlet.

An issue pending for years, the matter of ELVs was taken up in 2015 by the National Green Tribunal and later in 2018 by the Supreme Court. Lack of identification technology, like ANPR, delayed its implementation. Delhi has over 80 lakh registered vehicles, of which around 62 lakh, among them 41 lakh two-wheelers, have reached the end of their lives.

As per Commission for Air Quality Management, older or outdated vehicles emit more pollutants than the latest BS-VI compliant engines. The older BS-4 compliant vehicle emits 5.5 times more pollutants than the BS-VI vehicle. The transport sector in Delhi-NCR contributes around 28% of PM2.5 pollutants to the air and 41% of sulphur oxides and 78% of nitrogen oxides.