: Motorcycle and scooter users can rest assured that they will not be asked to get off the roads under the odd-even scheme till Delhi’s public transport can accommodate them — which will take at least two years.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Tuesday that his government could not bring two-wheelers under the ambit of the road-rationing scheme as the Metro and the DTC would not be able to take the additional load.
Mr. Kejriwal said about 40 lakh people use two-wheelers daily. If they were brought under odd-even, the Metro and the DTC would not be able to take the load of 20 lakh more commuters each day. “There would be chaos on the roads. There would be anarchy,” said Mr. Kejriwal.
The Chief Minister was addressing a public meeting organised by the Centre for Science and Environment here to mark the 20th anniversary of the launch of its right to clean air campaign. Mr. Kejriwal said the government had decided to try out odd-even after Delhi’s air quality became so bad that the courts had remarked that the Capital had become a “gas chamber”.
As per the government’s own data, trucks and two-wheelers contribute more towards vehicular pollution than private cars. Referring to criticism that the government had exempted two-wheelers from odd-even because of political reasons, Mr. Kejriwal said there was no truth in the allegations.
“People say that we exempted two-wheelers because the people who use them are our vote-bank. But, all of Delhi is our vote-bank. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have won 67 out of 70 seats in the Assembly,” said Mr. Kejriwal.
He said during phase one of odd-even in January, ridership of the Metro and the DTC went up by 0.7 per cent and 5 per cent respectively.
“That means the car users opted for car-pooling, not public transport. But, two-wheeler users will end up moving to buses and the Metro, which the infrastructure cannot take now. It will take at least one-and-a-half to two years,” said Mr. Kejriwal.
Experts, however, said that odd-even would not be completely effective in reducing pollution if it did not include two-wheelers.
Sunita Narain, the director-general of CSE, said: “We understand the social issues involved, but to make odd-even effective two-wheelers will have to be included.”
She added that odd-even should not be a permanent solution, as it was designed to be an emergency measure.
