CIVIC BODIES IN A FIX AS 270 DIESEL PUBLIC UTILITY VEHICLES AWAIT NOD FOR REGISTRATION

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Supreme Court has fixed a deadline of March 31, 2020, for selling and registration of Euro IV (BS-IV) vehicles. So, if permission for our vehicles is delayed further, they

(the vehicles) will turn into scrap.

GURPAL SINGH, concessionaire working with the MCDS

NEWDELHI: At least 270 new diesel powered public utility vehicles meant for waste collection, sewer cleaning, supplying water, and mechanical sweeping of roads are lying unused in Delhi as they wait for registration, something on which the country’s top court has to sign off.

If the objective were to keep the city’s roads free of diesel vehicles, it has already failed; Delhi’s municipal corporations and other agencies are hiring old polluting diesel vehicles from the neighbouring Uttar Pradesh and Haryana to deliver the same services in the national Capital.

The problem stems from a December, 2015 order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which prohibited registration of any new diesel vehicles in Delhi including those older than 10 years. Even as the Supreme Court (SC), nearly a year later, lifted the ban on registration of diesel cars with an engine capacity of 2,000cc and above in the Capital by introducing a 1% environment cess on them, new construction equipment vehicles (the technical name for public utility vehicles) continued to be on the prohibited list. Eventually, NGT and later, the SC started giving approvals for registrations, elbeit on a case-by-case basis. Among the agencies that received such permission are the Special Protection Group (SPG), the Delhi Fire Service, and the Delhi Jal Board.

Six months ago, this stopped, according to two concessionaires engaged with several government agencies.

“Supreme Court has fixed a deadline of March 31, 2020 for selling and registration of Euro IV (BS-IV) vehicles. So, if permission for our vehicles is delayed further, they (vehicles) will turn into scrap,” said Gurpal Singh, a concessionaire working with the MCDS.

His reference is to the fact that vehicles that adhere to the older Bharat Stage IV emission standards can only be sold till March 31.

The three municipal corporations said they are the worst hit as the delay in receiving approvals from the apex court to register their new diesel vehicles is affecting their door-to-door waste collection system.

“Door-to-door collection and transportation of municipal solid waste (MSW) in a segregated form is mandated under the MSW Rules, 2016. We have at least 98 newly bought loaders and tippers for garbage collection that are gathering dust in our office premises. On the one hand, we cannot operate them and on the other, there are directions from the Delhi chief secretary that these rules have to be implemented in totality in our model wards by March 11,” said a senior official of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation, who did not wish to be named since the matter is subjudice in the Apex court.

Reports from the South and North MCDS stated that the two agencies have over 80 road sweeping vehicles and 25 garbage loaders waiting for approval respectively.

An official familiar with the matter said multiple agencies have been filing applications with the SC ever since the ban was ordered.

“Some applications were taken up by the top court individually and cleared. But, later when the applications started piling up, all the applications, petitions were bunched together and hearings were being held. An order on the same is expected any time now,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

“We are left with no choice other than hiring Haryana or UP registered vehicles as these essential services cannot be stopped, most of which are BS-III complaint, meaning they too are old. We are also taking old Delhi registered vehicles on rent,” a North MCD official said.

Officials of New Delhi Municipal Council, another litigant in the case, said the problem is that the agencies do not have alternatives to such diesel vehicles in the market.

“Given the registration and age (not more than 10 years old) restrictions on diesel vehicles, no government agency wants to buy a diesel-run construction equipment vehicle out of choice. But, barring a few garbage tippers, there is no Cng-run heavy duty vehicle available in the market. 16-ton hook loaders or compactors with high engine power are available only in diesel,” a senior official said on condition of anonymity.

The Delhi Fire Services (DFS), which is already short of resources, said it too has been unable to register at least 60 new fire tenders purchased in March 2018. “The NGT asked us to submit an affidavit ensuring that no fire tender older than 10 years is being used. But doing so is not possible because out of the total 200 vehicles DFS has, around 100 are more than 10 years old. We approached the SC because it would have resulted in a drastic crunch. Now the cases of all the civic agencies, the Delhi police and the DFS have been clubbed together. Hearings have been held and a verdict is expected anytime now,” said a fire official.

In July last year, a bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on the North MCD for mentioning the matter for hearing before a vacation bench despite the regular bench in the SC passing an order in May that its case would be heard in July. The case was about registration of six diesel-driven mounted suction-cum-jetting machines the purpose of desalting and cleaning of drains during the monsoon season.