[Rajeevraj]

Mr Kejriwal has already back tracked a step. Has said the proposal will be withdrawn if there are too many problems.

Amid the uproar over the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government's even and odd car number plates solution to Delhi's pollution menace, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said his government would "not do anything that creates problem for the people of Delhi".
Hinting at the possibility of the plan not being implemented, the Delhi Chief Minister said, "Many things have to be sorted out. If there are too many problems, it will be stopped."

Meanwhile even the Public Transport agencies have said that the deadline is too aggressive and it will not be possible to ramp up Public Transport options by then.

Sources in the Delhi Transport Corporation -- that manages the capital's public fleet of 4500 buses -- told NDTV, increasing the numbers within weeks "is impossible." Adding buses to the fleet requires a process that takes up to six months, they said. More than 90 per cent of the fleet is already operational. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said this evening his government plans to run 10000 buses on Delhi's roads. "Many things need to be worked out yet," he said.

Sources:

• IBNLive
  
• NDTV

[avdhesh15]

Utter nonsense. Banning private vehicles (which IMO aren't major contributors to pollution) isn't going to help. Ban the major culprits, i.e. trucks, old vehicles etc to start with rather than this unpractical and unimplementable step.

Does this seem like a strategy announced to take the spotlight away from the other happenings in the Delhi parliament?

[aditya101]

Despite major civil construction in last 10-20 years, traffic in Delhi has become extremely congested and problematic.

However, I do not support Kejriwal govt's idea at this moment. Alternate ideas, with lesser severity should be implemented first. For example;

- Malls should be closed on Mondays
- Reintroduce practice of closing markets (such as South ex) on Tuesdays
- Shift govt office timings from say 9 AM to 8:30
- Uniformly ask schools to open at 7 instead of 8
- Reduce schools from 6 days to 5 days, thus saving on Saturdays

This idea seems politically motivated, as the implementation will be responsibility of Delhi police. Knowing delhi, this will be very difficult to implement - thus Kejriwal gets to score a hit job on Central Govt.

Maybe to start with, on Fridays the odd-even rule can be applied.

Unfortunately, Delhi climate does not favour commutes by walking, cycling as much as say Bangalore and Pune.

[rdhawan15]

Originally Posted by aditya101

- Malls should be closed on Mondays
- Reintroduce practice of closing markets (such as South ex) on Tuesdays
- Shift govt office timings from say 9 AM to 8:30
- Reduce schools from 6 days to 5 days, thus saving on Saturdays

Some very good ideas there. I would also add:

- Make dedicated 'cycle lanes' for people to use cycles as a means of commute. Trust me, many people would be happy dropping the kids off to school on a cycle if it is near their homes.
- Increase number of coaches in Metro and increase its carrying capacity, provided this is technically feasible.
- Increase number of Buses on the road. Infact, the Government needs to double up the buses on the road if it wants people to lean away from the use of a car.
- Encourage people to adopt electric vehicles or CNG vehicles. Public awareness and 'Environment subsidy' should be considered as ways to wean away people from Diesel cars.

While the focus of Government is on the AAM AADMI, it keeps on failing in actually figuring out the high ticket pollution sources. Trucks, commercial 3-wheelers plying on Delhi roads and mini-trucks that carry all sorts of stuff during the day. And, not to forget the mess create by all these builder floors being constructed in each locality of Delhi. The age old practice of sweeping Delhi streets early in the Delhi adds dust to the air as well, so much so that you cannot pass through the road when the sweeper is in action.

IMHO, public is the softest target for the Government. If it wants to control pollution, it needs to look at the primary and main sources of pollution.

[ritedhawan]

Well, its a no-brainer that the implementation of such a rule is impossible.If the Delhi Government believes , they are going to empower the already over-stretched Traffic Police to implement this rule. Then there would be chaos of a magnitude we haven't seen before. Considering the fact , When a vehicle breaks down at peak hour time on any one of our 3 lane each side Ring Roads, It inevitably blocks the lane, which as a consequence creates a pile up for miles behind.Wonder what would happen if multiple vehicles are pulled over simply because it was not there day to drive that vehicle!

Its Ironic that greater the number of people employed to implement such a rule the greater the chaos that would ensue.

Any augmentation of Road infrastructure's effectiveness would be nullified by the rate at which the cars are registered in New Delhi.Because, bringing up a flyover or an underpass does not come into being in one day!It takes months to bring such a infrastructure up , and by the time its ready and brought to bear with gigantic number of vehicles.It has already lost its effectiveness!.Consider the (n) number of flyovers our city has, simply off-loading the dump (density of cars) to the space between 2 flyovers!.

Consider another observation--and you may call me paranoid as well for that--Ive have observed that during peak hour traffic, bumper-to-bumper traffic, the ingress of a flyover with bumper to bumper cars till the egress of the flyover.Has any one of you experienced the shaking(up and down movement) of your car right at the summit of the flyover!!?( I have experienced this on Nariana Flyover) and I believe its the stress that is being put on the flyover up to its limit.The moment I see from far that a flyover is inundated with cars, I would not take that flyover!

I sincerely believe that any augmentation of Infrastructure shall never keep pace with the number of cars that are inducted each day.

[JD1]

There is lot of skepticism regarding availability of public transport in Delhi when private vehicles are banned. It is assumed that public transport will be improved .. What I don't understand is why can't the government first prove and improve the public transport so vehicle owners can see for themselves that there are alternatives available and voluntarily ditch their cars. Not just Delhi but pick up any city and it's never the government who first improves and then asks for something in return. The common people are asked to sacrifice and then adjust. While some measures are for greater good, they can't be merely copied but the basics have to be in place first.
One of the challenging things in India is enforcement and even if this is pushed down our throat and even if most people willingly or unwillingly sacrifice their car ride on alternate days, the few who still take out their cars may go scot-free without enforcement.
The locality where I stay in Bangalore tried no-car day on one Sunday. This was a full day when they tried it and the entire locality. There were many who were inconvenienced - Doctors who were not able to attend to emergencies because their cars were stopped (while VIP netas visiting the locality were moving in their SUVs), senior citizens had to walk/take bus, people coming from outstation had to haul their luggage for couple of kms. While many liked the idea and participated enthusiastically, there were still many people inconvenienced since the details were not thought through. Same thing could happen with this idea unless the details are thought through and as I opined in the beginning that let's first see public transport improving and then ask vehicle owners to ditch their cars.

Commercial vehicles are exempted is surety considering Auto-wallas are AAP's huge support base!

Even if this plan goes ahead, there should be some exemptions-
- Start with one locality (Example CBD)
- Start with 8 am - 6pm or something like that instead of 24 hours
- Exempt electric vehicles (and provide tax credits on purchase/ownership of electric vehicles)
- Exempt woman drivers
- Exempt vehicles registered as Invalid carriage
- Exempt medical emergencies but not sure how enforcement will be - I mean you don't want to be stopped at 10 places on your way to hospital/doctor.

To summarize my 2 cents - Improve public transportation first, start experiments on small basis and gradually increase the scope.

[autobahnjpr]

Originally Posted by mayankk

Excellent. Trundle away upwards of 10kms a day just because the government, who does something, decides draconia is the way to go!
This is probably the myopia that the government suffers from as well. Underexposed to reality.

I agree with you that it will cause inconvenience but i think there is a bit of overreaction.

1) How many days we have 40 deg during commute time? May be 90 days during peak summer. One get to enjoy the weather when one walks and do not inhale the cfc airconditioned air of the car. Not to mention that Metro is airconditioned.
2) 1 km by walk takes about 10 mins and it is about 2 mins commute time between each metro station and each station is appx 1 km apart. So by the given logic, 16 mins by metro for 8 kms + 10 mins waiting time + 20 mins walks will total to about 46 mins. If one is lucky, one can save the 10 mins of waiting time. If one goes by car he/she will take about 30 mins, so the difference is about 15 mins each day for 3 days in a week. Also one can utilize the 16 mins of metro for doing some office work and will not have the strain of driving. Walking 2 kms daily is also good for health.
3) The metro ridership on average is about 25 lakhs and people from all stratas of society travel in metro, so your picture is very personalized generalization and goes against the data. I have seen senior government officials going by metro from dwarka to central secratariat. In addition to Delhi Metro, I have travelled by Singapore metro, Malaysia metro and London metro. There is not much difference. In fact, delhi metro sometimes feels much better.
4) It will take time to get used to it and new habit forming will take time and patience.

Nothing can beat the comfort, privacy and convenience of a car but it is upto us to give a cleaner air to the next generation.

[drsingh]

Matrimonial AD in Delhi : Boy with even car number seeks girl with odd car number- no bar on caste, religion

[sumeethaldankar]

I think a better solution to this is instead of implementing odd and even nos they should follow a system where they prevent cars ending with nos 0 and 1 from plying on Mon, 2 and 3 from Tue etc. This will only inconvenience people 1 day of the week rather than every alternate day. Again though how this will be implemented is a challenge as good as the alternate day scheme but this way people will have to manage just for 1 day rather without their vehicles rather than every alternate day. This will also offset the idea that people will buy 2 cars with different nos as not many people will buy a second car just to be used 1 day.

[vashisth]

What will happen to the people going for night shifts? How they will return home the next day? If they keep their cars parked at workplace then that means they have to commute by public transport on another day also. And will the workplaces allow extra parking space?

[sumeethaldankar]

Originally Posted by vashisth

What will happen to the people going for night shifts? How they will return home the next day? If they keep their cars parked at workplace then that means they have to commute by public transport on another day also. And will the workplaces allow extra parking space?

I am assuming it would be time bound ie 9 AM to 9 PM vehicles with odd even nos may not be allowed to ply because anyways before and after the mentioned times traffic cops may not be around to implement the odd even rule in large nos and road.

[rajneeesh]

This is a typical knee jerk reaction by the government coming afte it was pulled up by the court asking it what steps had been taken to tacle the pollution problem in Delhi.

Enforcement of this rule will be with Delhi Traffic Police on which Kejriwal government has no control. As has been his wont, he will simply blame the central government for not cooperating with the state government and try to earn public sympathy.

The DTC comes under the Delhi government. For over 2 years it has not been able to come out with a successful tender for buses as the norms are so stiff that all bus manufacturers stay away. The Kejriwal government came to power in February, since then precious little has happened on this front. There is no enforcement of pollution norms and the transport department always cites lack of manpower and resources. Nothing has moved on this front. Pollution norms or small industries were diluted by Kejriwal to promote "ease of business" and to cater to its vote bank.

Web/App based taxis should be prometed to get people off personal vehicles. Instead of encouraging such solutions, the government has out- lawed app based taxi services.

While they should ensure that all these cabs run on CNG ( like other cabs), why should they be dictated to ply by a fare decided by the govt and why should they have a meter as a city taxi? All this is to protect the taxi driver/ auto rikshaw vote bank which is threatened by the new services.

[Davelloyd]

My suggestion to reduce the pollution:
1. Develop public transport system, in Singapore, London and NY people prefer either the tube or a cab.
2. Increase the congestion charges to a high amount such that people are forced to take public transport. This should be done only for private owned vehicles. The cabs can be included at 10% of what the normal charges are. ie. if a person who is not a cab driver will need to pay say 500 INR, the cabby will need to pay 50 INR which can be billed to the person who uses the cab.
Congestion charges should be made effective during peak hours.
3. Get a ring road constructed to let the heavy and old trucks without entering the cities. Short term approach would be to get them waiting until midnight and then let them use between 12-5 AM.
4. Construct warehouse facilities at the outskirts which can be used to transport the stuff which can be used within Delhi. ie. all the vegetables and other rations can be dropped at this place, use small trucks the ones with 4 wheels and which is short to transport them within the city after 9PM.

[Dry Ice]

This is just one of the proposed steps to counter the pollution in the Capital in short to medium term. The media conveniently forgets to cover the rest -

1. Changing entry times of outstation heavy vehicles from 9pm to 11pm.

2. Pollution checks for trucks entering Delhi and associated fines. High enough to be a deterrent to come again in the same polluting state.

3. Creation of dedicated bus roads - not a road sharing formula like BRT. Maybe even elevated at some places. Variety of buses to be introduced - economy to luxury.

4. Vacuum cleaning of particularly dusty roads to prevent the dust from regularly mixing with air. To start from April onwards in PWD areas first.

5. Centralised pollution checks. The emission data is analysed by a central server which will decide if the vehicle passes the emission test not the random guy at the booth. Stickers to be pasted on windshields. Cameras to monitor these and report the violations. Camera parr, I am sceptical about but welcome the stricter tests.

6. Plans to introduce Euro 6 by January 2017.

CM is going to invite suggestions from the public to fine tune all of the above and also if there are anymore solutions.

My request, please write to him with your ideas to clean Delhi's air once the official notification is out.

[Nithesh_M]

Such a shame that at a time when there are so many reports confirming alarming levels of pollution, the greed of a few people is already outweighing the needs of the many out there whose kids are suffering due to the long term effects of pollution. Instead of helping the govt to curb pollution, people are shamelessly supporting buying a second car and bribing RTOs for number plates now? Wow. Pathetic.

Is taking the bus on alternate days going to hurt anyone? The buses are plying empty in Delhi as NGT has slammed Delhi Transport and sent notice to Ashok Leyland and Tata Motors for operating them without passengers.
http://www.rushlane.com/ngt-slams-de...-12159312.html



Its not a lifetime thing, more measures can be added later to offset the PM2.5. Look how it worked out for Beijing here.

http://www.boredpanda.com/blue-skies...-cars-beijing/