New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said the proposed odd-and-even number vehicle scheme on alternate days will be tried out for a limited period of time and will be stopped if there are problems galore.
With experts and Opposition parties questioning the practicability of the scheme in which vehicles with odd and even number registration plates will be allowed to ply on alternate days from January 1, he said many things were yet to be thrashed out including exemption for certain private vehicles.
“In principle, a decision has been taken. Many things are yet to be thrashed out… We will experiment with it for some time. May be for 15 days. If there are too many problems, it will be stopped,” he said at the HT Leadership Summit here.
Kejriwal said his government had planned to introduce the scheme at a later stage after strengthening the public transport system but was forced to take the drastic step following “panic” in the wake of Delhi High Court’s observation that the city has become a “gas chamber”.
“A sort of panic was created that the pollution has increased so much that something drastic has to be done,” he said. In a radical step to curb air pollution, the city government on Friday announced that private vehicles bearing odd and even registration numbers will be allowed to ply only on alternate days starting January 1. Seeking to assuage concerns, Kejriwal said his government would not allow the people to be inconvenienced.
He said he had thought of introducing such a measure only after taking a number of steps, including redesigning the roads, augmenting public transport by bringing at least 10,000 buses and constructing dedicated elevated roads for buses.
Talking about initiatives taken by his government yesterday to tackle pollution, Kejriwal said vacuum cleaning on all PWD roads will begin from April 1 and grass will be planted on side kerbs and central verges of all the arterial roads to remove dust. (PTI)
