According the Ministry's statement, the ban will be applicable to all the vehicles that have been registered in cities falling under the territorial jurisdiction of NCR, such as Gurgaon, Faridabad, Sonepat and Jhajjar which cause significant air pollution. In fact these four regions alone account for over 20 lakh registered vehicles. What was largely alarming for the ministry was the fact that Delhi occupies the 11th position on the list of most polluted cities in the world, according to the latest World Health Organisation (WHO) reports.
In fact the situation is particularly bad in NCR, where recent pollution levels have been reported to be much higher than the acceptable limits. Reports claim that this is the case on most days of the year, sometimes the pollution levels go as high as 35 times the normal level.
Recently the National Green Tribunal (NGT) put a ban on 10-year-old diesel vehicles in the National Capital. The green court directed authorities to cancel the registration of all diesel vehicles that are older than 10 years measures to deal with pollution in the capital. In fact the order may see over 2.82 lakh diesel vehicles go off Delhi roads after the ban. As per official figures, there are a total of 5.9 lakh private and commercial diesel vehicles registered with the Delhi Transport Department and out of them 1.21 lakh commercial vehicles, while 1.61 lakh private vehicles including cars, jeep, tractors, which are more than 10 years old.
