New Delhi: In an unprecedented recommendation, the Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority, or EPCA has reiterated to take private vehicles off the road. This is a move that threatens to plunge Delhi into a public commuting catastrophe, bringing the city to its knees, while doing little to improve air quality – if data, expert opinion and past experience are anything to go by. The ‘big idea’ to solve Delhi’s pollution crisis shows that the primary custodians of the capital’s air quality have run out of ideas.
The Supreme Court-mandated body has suggested that all non-CNG vehicles – including all private cars and two-wheelers – in the National Capital Region (NCR) be barred from the roads if pollution levels spike again. That means grounding more than 92% of Delhi’s 10.8 million registered vehicles, leaving the capital at the mercy of its inadequate bus fleet, its still-burgeoning Metro network, and its poor last-mile connectivity.
