4 million ‘junk’ vehicles clog Delhi roads
Number of overage vehicles on city roads mount as agencies struggle to scrap them or enforce action against their owners
NEWDELHI: There are about 4 million “overage” vehicles, both diesel and petrol, deemed deregistered but yet to be taken off the roads in the national capital, according to Delhi government data. Last year, the state government had notified Guidelines for Scrapping of Motor Vehicles in Delhi, 2018 for disposing of these vehicles. It considers petrol and CNG vehicles older than 15 years, diesel vehicles older than 10 years and any vehicle rendered inoperable by accident or otherwise, as “overage”.
But the government has been able to scrap only 1,405 — 965 four-wheelers, 335 two-wheelers, 59 three-wheelers and 46 trucks and buses — of the 3,966,004 “junk” vehicles, leaving most of them to occupy precious public space and leading to traffic congestion. Every year, about 175,000 cars and 450,000 two-wheelers are added to Delhi’s roads.
The recently notified parking rules — Delhi Maintenance and Management of Parking Places Rules, 2019 — bans parking of junk vehicle in public spaces. It empowers the civic agencies or traffic police to impound junk vehicles parked in public space, especially 60-foot wide roads. It also empowers them to “auction” these vehicles if unclaimed by the owner within a period of 14 weeks (three months and 15 days).
However, experts say that considering the space crunch in the city and other practical reasons, scrapping is the only solution.
It was in November last year that Gagan Tyagi, a resident of Preet Vihar, had made up his mind to get his 12-year old diesel SUV scrapped. “The government, through a series of advertisements and notices, had then warned the public that old vehicles couldn’t even be left parked. I read the notice in a newspaper and decided to scrap it,” he said.
A year later, Tyagi’s SUV still remains parked outside his house. “I looked all over the websites of the Delhi government and its transport department, but found no list of empanelled scrap dealers. Nowhere have the agencies even mentioned any procedure,” he said.
Worried about government action, Tyagi even thought of selling his car to one of the hundreds of scrap dealers in areas such as West Delhi’s Mayapuri.
But trading these vehicles as second-hand vehicles too is banned in Delhi. At present, regional transport offices (RTOS) in Delhi are issuing No Objection Certificates (NOCS) only for diesel vehicles between 10 and 15 years old for sale outside Delhi. The government says it is yet to get clarity from the court on whether NOCS should also be given to old petrol vehicles.
“If I am complying with the law, I do not want my vehicle to end up in the illegal market. The whole purpose will be defeated then,” he said. “But I don’t seem to have much of a choice.” Tyagi’s worries are not unfounded.
Notifying the scrapping guidelines on August 24, 2018, the Delhi government had said the rules would reduce the demand for land to build scrapyards to accommodate junk vehicles impounded by enforcement agencies as these would be directly sent for dismantling or scrapping to authorised dealers.
But, in over a year the Delhi government has been able to empanel or authorise only one scrap dealer and issue provisional certificates to three others.
Special Commissioner (transport) KK Dahiya said, “We have
A petrol or CNG vehicle (2-wheelers or car) is older than 15 years A diesel vehicle is older than 10 years
A vehicle is rendered inoperable by accident or otherwise Parking such vehicles in public spaces is illegal total registered vehicles in Delhi vehicles have been declared junk in Delhi (of the total junk vehicles) are private cars and are aged 15 years or more (of the total junk vehicles) are 2-wheelers and are aged 15 years or more
at least 10 dealers whose license application status is pending. This is because some vendors are taking time to set up the required infrastructure. Scrap dealers, like those in Mayapuri area, are facing problems in getting emapanelled with us also because the rule requires at least 1000 square yards of space to carry out dismantling activities apart from having good machinery. Most of vehicles scrapped by empanelled dealers after the rule came into effect
are empaneled currently applications pending
the scrap dealers in Delhi don’t have adequate space as the entire set up operates informally.”
A senior DPCC official, “We have not received a single application from any of the dealers so far. Also, till the time DDA amends the rules on scrapping, we cannot go ahead with it.”
DDA officials said that a proposal to include scrapping as an activity in the Master Plan of
Empanel vehicle scrap dealers by issuing licences to those who are eligible Eligibility criteria has at least 7 parameters, including having a minimum of 1,000 square yard space, CCTV cameras for continuous video recording, certification from the pollution control board and ISO, and equipments for removal etc. of batteries, gas tanks, Money is given to the vehicle owner by the dealer in exchange of the vehicle.
Vehicles that are impounded by the authorities to be directly sent to the scrapyard
Delhi -2021 has been received. “We are working on amending the plan.”
While the civic agencies can impound vehicles , they don’t have space to keep these vehicles.
The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has 10 storage spaces, while the North and East corporations have 12 and four, respectively. The civic agencies say their stores or scrapyards
Any junk vehicle found parked in a public space, will be impounded and will be released only on showing a valid parking proof for that car besides payment of the requisite penalty amount
Any junk vehicle found parked on roads of width less than 60 feet shall be seized by the municipal corporations
Those parked on roads 60 feet and above will be seized by the traffic police or a joint team of traffic police and the civic body concerned
After a brief pilot run in early 2018, the app is no longer being used by enforcing agencies
The draft is similar to Delhi’s scrapping policy
It says, vehicles can be offered for scrapping if they are impounded or abandoned by enforcement agencies; are beyond repair; if RC has not been renewed; damaged due to fire or natural calamity or is without fitness certificate are full and can barely accommodate any extra vehicles.
Though the policy empowers the civic agencies to “auction” impounded vehicles, a majority of these are likely to return to city streets, say civic agency officials.
In most residential neighbourhoods in the city, one can find junk vehicles occupy road space. Resident says in most cases these vehicles are parked on the roads
It also states that a separate record of scrapped vehicles will also have to be included in the national register for vehicles (VAHAN), which has to be maintained by the Centre
just to reserve the parking space.
“Several such vehicles are parked on footpaths. We have even had cases of fights over parking in many colonies. The civic agencies need to intensify their enforcement,” said BS Vohra, head of the east Delhi RWA joint front.
In Lajpat Nagar-iii, where the SDMC is implementing the pilot project to streamline parking in residential area on court orders, the civic agency had identified “48 junk vehicles”. “The vehicles were removed by the owners after the SDMC served them 30-day notices,” said Prem Shankar Jha, Deputy commissioner and in-charge of Remunerative Projects (RP) Cell, SDMC.
The Delhi traffic police said it conducts drive against End of Life Vehicles (ELVS) “every now and then”, but it did not provide data about the number of vehicles impounded in the last six months or one year. “Drives are carried out every now and then. But, a lot of cases end up in the court as most of the rules are not legally binding. So, the vehicle owner has an upper hand,” said a senior traffic officer.
In February last year, the state transport department had even launched a mobile application — ‘Khatara Gaadi’ — where people could click pictures and report about any junk vehicle eating up a public parking space.
However, the government said the app has now become dormant as managing the complaints between various agencies had become “difficult”.
While enforcement agencies expressed their inability to carry out sustained drives to impound such vehicles owing to lack of space, scrap dealers say dismantling them is the way forward.
“The rules are in place, now what we need is a will to effectively implement these rules. The government needs to ease its rule to authorise scrap dealers, who would dismantle end of life vehicles in a systematic and ecofriendly manner. Incentives should be offered to those who voluntarily opt to dismantle their end of life vehicle,” said Ramesh Kumar Gupta, general secretary of the Mayapuri Industrial Welfare Association. Mayapuri is considered to be Delhi’s biggest vehicle scrap market.
“But, more importantly, incentives should also be offered to scrap dealers to shift to safer, less hazardous and buy ecofriendly machines as they are expensive,” he said.