THE Supreme Court order of July 28, 1998, issued to the Delhi government in order to reduce vehicular pollution in the National Capital Region (NCR) consisted of 14 items. These included:
1. Augmentation of the public transport (stage carriage) fleet to 10,000 buses by April 1, 2001;
2. Replacement of all pre-1990 autorickshaws and taxis with new vehicles run on clean fuels by March 31, 2000;
3. Financial incentives for the replacement of all post-1990 autorickshaws and taxis with new vehicles run on clean fuel by March 31, 2001;
4. No eight-year-old buses should ply, except on compressed natural gas (CNG) or other clean fuels, by April 1, 2001;
5. Entire city bus fleet (Delhi Transport Corporation, or DTC, and private buses) should be steadily converted to the single-fuel mode on CNG by March 31, 2001;
6. Indraprastha Gas Ltd. (IGL), the joint venture partnered by Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (BPCL) and the Delhi government, may increase the number of CNG outlets from nine to 80 by March 31, 2000;
7. Automated inspection and maintenance facilities should be set up immediately.
8. A comprehensive Inspection and Maintenance (I&M) programme should be started by March 31, 2000; and
9. Restrict the plying of all commercial vehicles to those that are less than 15 years old.
Of these, only items 2, 3, 4 and 9 have been implemented. The most contentious issue relates to item 5, namely the conversion of the entire bus fleet of the city to operate on a single-fuel mode, using CNG. Currently the numbers of vehicles running on CNG are as follows: Taxis and cars 2,000; three-wheelers 30,000 (expected to go up to 50,000); buses 3,000 (should go up to 11,000 if the court order is implemented); mini buses 1,200.
