Vehicular Pollution: Delhi Govt To Ask Aggregators To Switch To Electric Vehicles

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government is also going to ask the petrol pumps in Delhi to not give fuel to vehicles without a pollution-under-check (PUC) certificate.

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New Delhi: In a step aimed at reducing vehicular pollution, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led government is going to ask the e-commerce companies, food delivery services and cab aggregators to completely switch to electric vehicles.

“The government is going to take two major steps to check vehicular pollution -- we will ask all aggregators, including Zomato, Swiggy, Ola, Uber etc. to completely switch to electric vehicles. These services account for 30 percent of the registered vehicles in Delhi,” said an official.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government is also going to ask the petrol pumps in Delhi to not give fuel to vehicles without a pollution-under-check (PUC) certificate.

“We are also considering directing dealers and petrol pumps not to supply fuel to vehicles without PUC certificate,” PTI quoted a senior official in the transport department as saying.

The directions under the Environment (Protection) Act in this regard are expected to be issued this week.

When asked if a deadline will be given to the aggregators to switch to electric vehicles, he said the draft guidelines will soon be published in this regard.

“It will be done in phased manner. We will soon publish the draft guidelines,” he said.

The move assumes significance as vehicle emissions account for around 38 percent of Delhi’s air pollution.

The Delhi Electric Vehicles policy, which was introduced earlier in August last year, aims at increasing the EV share in total vehicle sales to 25 percent by 2024.

So far, only Flipkart and Fedex have established worldwide targets for converting their last-mile delivery fleets to electric vehicles by 2030 and 2040 respectively.

DHL, on the other hand, has set a 60 percent electrification target for its fleet.

The AAP government had earlier in October launched a massive drive to check PUC certificates and deployed around 500 teams at the petrol pumps for the same.

The vehicle owners not having a valid PUC certificate can be fined up to Rs 10,000 or imprisoned for up to six months or both under Section 190(2) of the Motor Vehicle Act, 1993.

In tune with the same, the owners are required to get test their vehicles tested to ascertain if they meet emission standards for pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides and carbon dioxide.

The Delhi government will also in compliance with the directions issued by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) deregister all diesel vehicles, which will complete 10 years on January 1, 2022, and issue a no objection certificate (NOC) so that they can be re-registered in other places.

The diesel vehicles, which have completed 15 years or more on the date of applying for it, will, however, as per an earlier order not be issued the NOC.