Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday announced the blueprint for its ambitious Odd Even Formula for vehicles starting from 1 January 2016.
This is being done to curb the rising air pollution in the city.
Kejriwal spoke to media at his official residence in Delhi.
https://youtu.be/E6OhMPFGGxY
Here are the highlights;
- Pollution is an important issue for all of us. Yesterday was the most polluted day in Delhi
- Arvind coughs, smiles and asks journalists that ‘you will now take photo of my cough’
- Our initiatives of last few days shows we are moving in the direction in fighting pollution
- Have received all approvals related to Odd Even scheme. LG too has approved.
- Notification will be issued on Monday
- Odd Even formula will kick in from 1 January. It will be effective from 8 in the morning and 8 in the evening fom Monday to Saturday. Sunday will be exempted
- Offenders will be fined Rs 2000
- PMs, Presidents, Judges, Parliament/Assembly Speakers, Council of Union Ministers, Leader of Opposition in Paliament, LGs, chief ministers of other states except Delhi, Lokayukt to be exempted from Odd Even Formula
- Embassy vehicles too will be excluded
- Vehicles with single woman driver and medical emergencies too will be exempted. It will be trust based.
- Buses leaving their lanes will be penalised. But other vehicles can run in bus lanes
- Will consider including two wheelers later
- Metro will ply on time. 6000 new buses will be on roads. Poocho and car pool apps will be in operation.
- Avoid strangers, form car pooling groups consisting friends relatives
- Parking people are being asked not to allow vehicles with odd numbers on even dates and vice versa
- Awareness will be created among traffic police, am writing to MHA, LG, and Police to cooperate
- We should not bring in politics here
- School children will take oath on 30 December that they will make their parents to follow odd and even formula
- If too many people violate in peak hours, you can’t fine all of them. Will need cooperation from janta
OUR take: Arvind Kejriwal’s initiative is bold. But the list of exclusions is far too long. It’s self defeating to start with. Arvind Kejriwal says that he expects judges and union ministers to cooperate voluntarily. In a country like India, if voluntary participation in anti-pollution exercise was possible, then we wouldn’t be in such a catastrophic situation.
Also, it doesn’t make sense to exclude judges, when no less than the Chief Justice himself had offered to follow Odd and Even formula.
Also, leaving everything to janta another difficult areas. In response to question that what happens if too many people break the rules in peak hours, Kejriwal says he will rely on aam janta to stop them from violating the scheme. It may work in the western countries but expecting ordinary people to remind ‘offenders’ about their offence in Delhi is very ambitious.