Delhi govt, traffic police: No adequate staff to enforce NGT order

A day after National Green Tribunal banned all diesel-run vehicles, which are more than 10 years old in the national Capital, both Delhi government and traffic police said that they don’t have adequate staff to enforce it.

Delhi government, citing staff crunch, has written to traffic police to implement the NGT order but the police said that it will be extremely difficult for them to implement this new order with its current resources and manpower.

According to a senior government official, the transport department has only 150 staff in enforcement section and in view of this, the department cannot implement NGT’s order on its own.

The department’s officials said that there are 1,18,776 private vehicles and 34,659 commercial vehicles which are more than 15-year-old.

“Six to seven teams are deployed at different parts of the city every day and night. We are already facing staff crunch as there are 600 posts vacant lying for a long time. We cannot implement the green court’s order alone,” said a senior official requesting anonymity.

The official said that keeping this in mind, “we have written to Delhi Traffic Police to launch a crackdown against vehicles which are more than 10 year old.

“Traffic police looks after the traffic management of the city. Transport department will also deploy teams at 11 entry points with limited resources but traffic police should also be roped in to strongly implement this order,” the official said.

On the other hand, the traffic police said that implanting the green court’s order will be difficult for them with the current resources and manpower.

“We are still struggling to implement last year’s order of ban on vehicles more than 15 years old. Now, implementing this new order of banning diesel vehicles which are more than 10 years old will be even tougher,” said a senior police official.