How and Whys Of Delhi’ s Odd-Even Vehicle Policy. Will It Work?
How and Whys Of Delhi’ s Odd-Even Vehicle Policy. Will It Work?
Desperate times require desperate measures. If one thinks the recent move by Delhi government to be inane, it is because the city’ s pollution level has reached absurd levels, and any step needed to stop that would necessarily have to be in extremes. According to benchmarks, the Delhi pollution levels predominantly hang in between the scales of‘ very poor’ and‘ severe’. The astronomical surge in pollution levels cannot be blamed on a single source. Undeniably, the effluence from cars plays a major role in upping the poison levels in air. Accepted we love car travels, but let us not deceptively console ourselves by prematurely concluding that the experimental move to be implied in Delhi from the first day of 2016 would be ineffective. The government has already taken a few measures to curb air pollution. The citizens of the city do not seem to reciprocate to the endeavor with similar enthusiasm. The odd-even rule is not as outlandish as the unforgiving social media is projecting it to be. Beijing, which comes second after Delhi in the list of world’ s most polluted cities, launched similar initiative for two months in 2008 before the Olympic Games. As per news reports, the policy cut down emissions by 40 percent. Since October 2008, the policy was implemented in the city on a permanent basis. The launch of the‘ Car-Free Day’ initiative on October 22 in the national capital led to a 60 percent drop in the air pollution on the car-free stretch in comparison to the levels observed on a normal day, a report released by the Centre for Science and Environment( CSE) stated. However, the same agenda next month
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failed to spur substantial commitment from the citizens. Shutting down power plants in the city, changing entry timings of trucks in the city and prohibiting open burning of garbage adds to the list of steps taken by the authorities on this issue. The National Green Tribunal has stopped diesel vehicle registrations in Delhi till January 6, 2016. The odd-even plan, internationally known as“ road space rationing”, is estimated to impinge on 8.4 million vehicles registered in Delhi. The Delhi Pollution Control Committee said it will collect samples from 200 places to be tested during these 15 days of the trial run, to see if the move has been effective to curb pollution. Other cities which put similar restrictions for cars on roads include – Venezuela’ s capital Caracas, Chile’ s capital Santiago, Athens, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Bogota, La Paz, San Jose in Costa Rica and Philippines’ capital Manila. Paris, in March last year, came up with a similar policy of alternate driving days. Though the rule did not stay for a long time, the city successfully observed a car-free day on 27 September this year. The odd-even policy undoubtedly will ruffle a few feathers, especially when Delhi has made itself comfortable even among the obnoxious scarcity of parking space owing to its inhabitants owning more cars than necessary. Nevertheless, like all watershed policies, this too needs to be provided with the necessary time and space to grow and have course corrections.