‘City ready to execute ban on refuelling of overage vehicles’

Decks have been cleared to implement the ban on the “end of life” or overage vehicles from refuelling in Delhi from July 1, the Commission for Air Quality Management in NCR and Adjoining Areas (CAQM) said on Friday.

Addressing mediapersons, Virinder Sharma, a member of the CAQM, said that automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras have been installed at all 520 fuel stations in the national capital to help identify and impound overage vehicles.

The National Green Tribunal had in 2015 banned overage vehicles, defined as petrol vehicles older than 15 years and diesel vehicles older than 10 years, in the NCR.

For effective implementation of this prohibition, the Centre’s pollution watchdog had in April this year ordered that overage vehicles, including those from other States, would not be allowed to refuel in Delhi-NCR.

Ban in other NCR cities

The ban will take effect from November 1 in Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, and Sonipat.

“The ANPR cameras have been installed in the three ISBTs — Kashmere Gate, Anand Vihar, and Sarai Kale Khan — to ensure that no fuel is supplied to end-of-life buses from other States coming to Delhi,” said Mr. Sharma.

How the tech works

Explaining the mechanism behind the technology, an official said that as soon as a vehicle enters a fuel station, the ANPR camera scans the vehicle’s licence plate number and verifies the registration details, fuel type, and vehicle age with the Central government’s VAHAN portal.

If the vehicle is overage, the system will flag it, and an automated message will be aired through speakers installed at the fuel station.

₹168-cr. in challans

In a statement, the CAQM said that a trial run of the cameras at several fuel stations was conducted in December last year.

“So far, a total of 3.63 crore vehicles have been screened using the technology, of which 4.90 lakh vehicles have been identified as overage. Additionally, 29.52 lakh vehicles have renewed their Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificates, resulting in the generation of challans amounting to ₹168 crore,” stated the Central agency.

It added that there are about 62 lakh overage vehicles in Delhi.

“The use of ANPR cameras for detecting overage vehicles at fuel stations represents a significant shift towards technology-driven, real-time enforcement of vehicle emission regulations,” the CAQM added.