Odd- even: HC asks Delhi govt can it be restricted to 1 week

Highlighting “insufficient” public transport and “inconvenience” caused to people by the odd-even road rationing experiment, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the AAP government to consider if it can be restricted to a week instead of a fortnight as planned.

Terming as “vague” the status report submitted by the government on implementation of the scheme, the court also sought information about the pollution caused by taxis running on diesel and CNG which have been kept out of the purview of the odd-even formula. It also sought data related to changes in the pollution level between January 1 and 7, the day the scheme will have completed a week.

“Aren’t these six days enough for you? We have permitted the government to run this scheme for one week during which they must have collected data relating to pollution levels in the city,” a division bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath said.

The Delhi government, while replying to the court’s query as to why women and two-wheelers have been exempted from the scheme, said it was done as it is committed to providing security to women and that applying odd-even scheme to the two wheelers would have crippled the transport system given inadequate public transport.

Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai on Wednesday said that the car rationing measure was being enforced for a period of 15 days so as to enable the government to collect “sufficient data”.