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Delhi May Have to Replace 50% of Its Ambulances After NGT Order

Nearly 50 percent of ambulances in Delhi face threat of de-registration after NGT order.



Traffic travels along a road in Delhi (Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg)
Traffic travels along a road in Delhi (Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg)

Around 2.8 lakh vehicles may go off the roads in the national capital, once the Delhi government implements the National Green Tribunal’s order to revoke registration of all diesel vehicles that are over 10 years old.

The green tribunal was reiterating an order it passed in April last year. However, in partial relief, the tribunal asked for a phased de-registration, starting with vehicles more than 15 years old.

Irate Car Owners

Car owners will of course, be the worst affected given the size of the passenger car market in Delhi, and quite predictably, owners are not pleased. Mohan Lal, a local resident of Gurugram, says he recently bought a 9-year-old car which he will now be able to use just for another year. He says it is unfair to tell a car owner he can use the car only for 10 years when he has paid taxes for 15 years. On being asked what will he do now, he says ‘’I can send my car to my home state by getting a No Objection Certificate and then re-registering it, but not everyone will be able to do it.’’

Devil in The Diesel?

Delhi is the second largest car market for auto makers. And though car companies are yet to challenge NGT’s order in the Supreme Court, they contest the premise that diesel vehicles are the major source of air pollution in Delhi. Chairman of Maruti Suzuki Ltd., RC Bhargava, quotes an Indian Institute of Technology - Kanpur report which says passenger vehicles cause only around 2.2 percent of the total Particulate Matter (PM)2.5 pollution in Delhi.

I can’t see how this ban on diesel cars will make any measurable difference to air quality in Delhi, but it will certainly hurt industry, and more than industry, it is penalising car owners who have complied with the law in buying these cars, who have done nothing wrong and suddenly they find their asset just becomes scrap,even before they are heard. I don’t know how far that is fair, how far that is justified, as far as those people are concerned.
RC Bhargava, Chairman, Maruti Suzuki

Focus on Emission Control

But some see merit in the rationale of the green tribunal’s decision. Polash Mukerjee, research associate at Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi explains why he thinks cars older than 10 years are covered under the order.

Older cars follow BS-1, BS-2 norms and in many cases, pre-2000 cars do not follow any norms as India did not have an emission norms standards then. So the pollution caused by these cars is exponentially higher than newer models. That’s why it is important that the old cars are phased out. It is not specifically about the age of the cars that is targeted here but the emission standards,” Mukherjee said in a telephonic interview.

The focus should indeed be on emission control, with proper direction on fuel emission norms, and not just piecemeal moves, according to car maker Honda. Jnaneswer Sen, Honda Car India’s Senior Vice President of Marketing & Sales, said in an email interview that clear directions on emission standards will rule out uncertainties.

We would prefer a long-term direction towards fuels and fuel emission norms. Piecemeal moves are confusing for the industry. We are not able to plan confidently as there is always an element of ambiguity around the policies that would be implemented in the future. This makes the process of strategising that much more difficult not just for the industry, but also for consumers.
Jnaneswer Sen, Senior Vice President - Marketing and Sales, Honda Cars India

Half of City Ambulances Off The Road

The green tribunal’s ruling is not limited to passenger vehicles. The NGT ban may affect critical health services in Delhi as half of Delhi’s ambulances will have to be taken off the road.

Of 1,210 diesel ambulances registered in the city, around 813 are more than 15 years old
Data from Delhi Transport Department

The total number of ambulances registered in Delhi, including petrol ones, stand at 1,600, according to officials in the Delhi Transport Ministry. The green tribunal’s order effectively means 50 percent of ambulances in Delhi would need to be replaced. It is unclear whether any special arrangements will be made to minimise the impact on daily services.

The order also brings to the fore the need for a nationwide policy for scrapping older vehicles. A scrappage policy entails incentives being offered to new car buyers who want to scrap their old vehicles for newer models with better emission standards, and there is consensus among consumer and car companies that such a policy will help curb pollution from older vehicles. The government is currently working on a scrappage policy.