Beside doubling the “green tax” for trucks that are coming into the city, the court also banned trucks more than 10-years old from entering Delhi.
Advertisement
Chief Justice T.S. Thakur ordered the ban on registration of new diesel vehicles with engine capacity of two litres or more – typical of SUVs, jeeps and other luxury cars.
“A ban on registration of such vehicles will not therefore affect the common man or the average citizen in the city of Delhi”, the bench ruled, while directing all taxis, including those operating under aggregators like Ola and Uber, plying under city permits should move to CNG not later than 1st March.
Delhi’s air routinely worsens in the winter as the poor start lighting fires to stay warm and as cooler air and clouds trap pollutants.
“There can not be anything more fundamental than the right to clean air and what the court has recognised today…(is) this is a public health emergency”, Narain told reporters.
Delhi is considered to have some of the most polluted air in the world, as measured by levels of tiny particles that can find their way deep in the lungs and that cause lasting health problems.
The Court has also hiked the green cess on commercial vehicles by 100 per cent.
More than 23% of the cars on Delhi roads run on diesel, which is cheaper than petrol, according to the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment think tank.
“In the circumstances, we consider it necessary to make it clear that no vehicle which is not bound for Delhi will be allowed to enter from NH 8 which connects Jaipur to Delhi and NH 1 that connects the States of Punjab, Haryana and other northern States to Delhi via Kundli border”, the bench noted.
Mahindra & Mahindra, India’s top utility-vehicle maker, was one of the biggest losers with shares down 5.5 percent. With all of its models sold in India affected by the ban till March 31 next year, the company said the “decision is going to adversely affect the auto industry as a whole and will certainly encourage the creation of an unequal ground”.
Pollution levels in Delhi are at an all time high and several steps are being taken to improve the situation.
Advertisement
Successive Delhi governments have faced scathing criticism for failing to come up with a strategy to tackle the smog. Opinions are also somewhat split on the Delhi government’s radical 15-day odd-even experiment to regulate the number of cars on city roads begins on January 1.
