re: Proposal to ban 15 year old vehicles. EDIT: Concept paper released on page 18 "Desperate times call for desperate measures" the old saying goes; and one can hardly be blamed for grasping at all possible straws re: the seemingly impossible air quality situation in Delhi: it is obviously horrible, as my burning, coughing lungs remind me within hours of entering the capital on any visit.
But we too often see reactionary governments slashing and thrusting at everything in sight when the pressure is on. It is dramatic and looks serious, of course, but swordplay tends to get pretty messy (and dangerous for either party!), and it has to be acknowledged that the careful surgeon's knife is generally a more constructive and lower-risk way of actually solving problems to the benefit of all involved.
I really do wonder sometimes who exactly the members of this "National Green Tribunal" actually are - whether they be astute researchers / observers / statisticians re: ground-level realities; or else (I fear) ivory-tower scientific "experts" in this field, or else (I again fear) the usual political appointees, who, having frighteningly little actual experience or information to go on and the means to remain unaffected by most of the laws they create, have a propensity to favor solutions equally extreme and ineffective... What I feel compelled to say here as simply an observer (no expert) re: ground-level realities here around Manali, where a similar ban has been initiated for all points north of Vashisht chowk, and being personally either the victim or alleged beneficiary of all this, that I am absolutely certain that many of the measures being taken will prove completely ineffective towards achieving the desired results.
Now, ineffectiveness is itself not very desirable, but it's even worse when failed initiatives have been implemented with such high levels of cost / inconvenience / economic debilitation / basic unfairness / loss of personal liberty for a significant percentage of a given population. Please don't experiment on us, especially if at our own cost!
I have moreover just never understood the logic of creating new laws when existing ones, which actually could be effective, are knowingly not implemented / routinely circumvented / completely ignored. It is not as though enforcing a 10-year ban will really be easier than enforcing PUC center guidelines / procedures. Please THINK! What I know for sure (if anyone in the gov't / NGT is listening - and they should be):
1. Beyond not even actually checking vehicles (i.e., bothering to put the probe in the tailpipe), one local checking center (this shows the extent of things) even kept the number plate photo on record and offered to simply deliver the PUC certificate to our workplace when it was next due, to save us (and them) the trouble of our even showing up. Been to three centers here, and all are simply printing certificates (one seemed to have a policeman standing by doing nothing). So obviously there are not going to be any gains here - gross polluters will ascend the road to Rohtang Pass (or wherever else) along with the clean ones.
2. Even if they WERE checking each vehicle, it would not be effective, because the test is simply too rudimentary. Authorities in the U.S. finally mandated dynomometer-based pollution testing of vehicles for this reason: how much an engine will pollute at idle is simply no good indication of what it's going to pollute under actual, loaded driving conditions.
3. I pretty much daily see brand-new vehicles up here (the TDI Indigo taxis as one consistently notorious example) smoking profusely thick/black, and many 15-year-old diesels running perfectly clean from a visual standpoint (visuals actually being a solid indicator of particulate emissions). Now, why a new computer-controlled BSIV/V vehicle should be combusting anything but ideally, or even worse under the conditions than many older vehicles, is a question worth looking into - there must be problems on the original certification end of things, but anyway, if anyone doubts what I'm saying as being rather common rather than the exception, it is easily provable by setting up a video camera on a tripod for an hour along any local roadside here. And these Indigos (TATA/regulating bodies, are you listening?), while the prime example, are not the only new cars exhibiting "gross pollution" up here.
4. It's the overall "carbon footprint" we need to be looking at here. Even if vehicle age WERE consistently proportional to emission levels under whichever conditions, as noted elsewhere, the owners of a great many barely-driven, perfectly maintained older vehicles end up severely victimized here: Their current actions least affect the pollution problem, yet they've been most specifically targeted. Moreover, having been forced to buy new vehicles at great cost, their personal sacrifices are sadly going to contribute the least towards improvements, also.
I'd probably put ourselves in that category: we've got a 14-year-old diesel vehicle we never see smoke out the back of; we typically put about 30km a week on it; we've been to Rohtang Pass once in 30 months, practically never load the car to capacity; etc... How many local, private vehicles are plying the Rohtang road regularly? Practically none. Compare this to tourist Indigo TDI's generally smoking like Hell, putting in a minimum of 700km a week (6 runs weekly to Rohtang), being maintained as little as possible, generally loaded to capacity / driven at excessive speeds, etc, and you see where at least 99% of the impact is clearly coming from. What is my one Rohtang run in two years (for a family outing) compared to the taxi-wallah's hundreds? And yet I am banned / have my vehicle confiscated, and he is free to travel there daily for the next ten years. Sorry, but this is STUPID, and there's where I start getting pretty sure the NGT folks have their heads up their respective... eh, never mind. As with the heavy truck situation in the capital, FIX YOUR FOCUS WHERE THE ACTUAL, MEASURABLE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM LIES! Some basic problem-solving skills (if not plain common sense) would be helpful here!
5. There ways of dealing with this problem, whether in Delhi, Manali, or other sensitive areas, that are preferable to outright bans on 10/15 year olds - It might be worth studying the actions of CARB (the California Air Resources Board) among others, who had to take some pretty dramatic measures starting back in the 1960's, when they realized that, largely as a function of local geography and vehicle population, their pollution levels were far worse than similarly-sized cities elsewhere. Few ideas from around the world: A) Ban the sale/registration of new diesel vehicles in affected cities / regions; B) Introduce low-emission (California) / Delhi-only variants; C) Increase the stringency of inspections / testing (dynomometers, etc) and frequency of spot-checks on testing stations; D) (EU?) Increase registration fees for older vehicles (still not "fair" in some situations, but provides a basic incentive to retire older cars, as well as the freedom to continue using them for those desiring to or with no other option); E) For diesels in particular, focus more on the particulate-indicating visual check - use roadside video to identify/document gross polluters and ban / challan ACTUALLY polluting vehicles; F) (Mexico) ban in a more limited fashion, i.e., private number plates ending in "1" banned Mondays, "2&3" banned Tuesdays, etc - Instantly decreasing both traffic volume and pollution by at least 10% every day of the week, while leaving the overall mobility of owners only slightly reduced - "off" days can be planned for / worked around in most cases). Also easier for police to identify vehicles in violation via number plate, even in heavy traffic (vs. document checks or even RF identification); G) (mentioned elsewhere): special registrations / guidelines for limited-use, vintage/classic vehicles. The time has really come for this sort of thing in India.
Many Thanks,
Eric
Last edited by ringoism : 19th April 2015 at 23:22.
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