In what comes as the first step taken by RTO authorities, re-registration of diesel vehicles more than 10 years old and petrol vehicles over 15 years old will be stopped in Delhi and NCR.
After the National Green Tribunal (NGT) recently banned the plying of diesel vehicles that are more than 10 years old and petrol vehicles that are over 15 years old on Delhi and NCR roads, the Regional Transport Officer (RTO) has followed up this order and has issued guidelines to stop the re-registration of such vehicles. Today marks the first step taken by RTO authorities in this regard and even those vehicles that have obtained a no objection certificate (NOC) from other states, will not be allowed to be registered in the city.
According to the authorities, initially it was impossible to ban old vehicles from plying on city roads because it was difficult to check the age and keep a tab of these vehicles. Therefore, stopping re-registration seemed to be the next best move. From official figures, Delhi has a total of 30,049 diesel vehicles, from which 4606 are more than 10 years old. 671 of these are privately owned cars and 3935 are commercial vehicles including the likes of taxis, light and heavy goods vehicles and buses. RTO authorities do not have sorted details for petrol vehicles that are over 15 years old as of now.
Public awareness campaigns regarding the latest ban will start off soon because the general public must be aware about the rule first, if at all proper execution of the same is expected. Additional details regarding the new rule are yet to be disclosed and until then, all car owners who wish to keep their vehicles longer than the specified period are going to have nervous moments for sure. The move has been highly debated off late due to the fact that whether or not banning these vehicles will actually help in curbing pollution or not. Regardless of this, we hope that the government looks at other alternatives to improve air quality levels in the capital city.
