Diesel vehicles: Ministry to move court against tribunal order

NEW DELHI, APRIL 10:  

The Road Transport Ministry is looking to take legal recourse against the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order that calls for banning over 10-year-old diesel vehicles in the National Capital Region (NCR), even as experts point out that the condition of a vehicle should be taken into account.

The Ministry has already moved the Supreme Court against an earlier NGT order calling for a ban on 15-year-old vehicles, saying such a ban should apply only to commercial vehicles, not private ones.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Government has called a meeting on Monday with neighbouring Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, to discuss the modalities for implementing the order.

To add to all this, the All India Motor Transport Congress has threatened that Monday onwards, no vehicle will enter Delhi if the Government does not look into the issue.

Stakeholders are questioning the grounds of the ban, its “suddenness”, execution and impact.

“The level of emission should be defined. Otherwise, such a move will cause panic among public,” said a senior transport official.

Vijay Chhibber, Secretary, Road Transport, said: “It (emission) depends on vehicle maintenance. The Government will take a view.”

Questioning mere replacement of vehicles as a panacea for pollution, V Shekhar Awasthy, Chief Data Scientist, Aileron Analytics Consulting, said: “When you replace an existing diesel vehicle with another (petrol or CNG), you buy 1,000 kg to 2,000 kg of steel. Has anyone paid any attention to the pollution caused by first processing iron to steel sheets and then, further processing this to auto components?”

Environmentalists, however, welcomed the order. Anumita Roychowdhury, Executive Director, Centre for Science and Environment, said emission norms of diesel vehicles in any case are more relaxed.

We Indians are very conservative and do not declare anything obsolete. We prefer to maintain it and let it run probably as long as the owner.

However, the automobile lobby is finding their sales stagnant as the the road surface is fixed and the number of vehicles the roads could accommodate has reached stagnation point hence the pressure on the government and the courts to ease out old vehicles so that new ones are bought.

If the old vehicles pass the pollution test why should one want to change them?

This is another western fad that is infiltrating India under the garb of reducing pollution.

Western countries throw way anything that goes old, including their wives and parents.

That is why even before marriage, they make a contract as to who would get what in the event of a divorce, which is most likely.

For them dumping an old car and buying a new one is cheaper than maintaining an old one for maintenance is very expensive there. 

I am all for replacement if the cost of replacement is less than the cost of running the old one.

Reminds me of an old Surendra Sharma joke.

A Jat was told by hospital superintendent where he had got his wife admitted, that his wife was ill and they would take Rs 1.0 lakh for operation.

The Jat replied wryly that he could get a new Jatni for Rs 10 thousand, so why spend Rs 1.0 lakh.