Decline in vehicles in Delhi — on paper, not on road, finds Economic Survey

A transport department official said in the weeks to come, the crackdown on overage vehicles will intensify because the government wants to weed out overage polluting vehicles to check pollution

The number of vehicles registered in Delhi has witnessed a huge drop from 12.2 million in 2020-21 to 7.9 million in 2021-22, according to the Economic Survey 2022-23 presented in the Delhi assembly on Monday.

Among the 7.9 million vehicles in the Capital, personal cars and jeeps account for around 26%, while around 66.5% are two-wheelers. (Parveen Kumar/HT Photo)

Among the 7.9 million vehicles in the Capital, personal cars and jeeps account for around 26%, while around 66.5% are two-wheelers, according to the survey. In addition, Delhi has 85,033 taxis, 17,522 buses, 1,145 ambulances and 93,578 auto rickshaws.

This sharp decrease in number can largely be attributed to the deregistration of end-of-life vehicles — no vehicle which is 15 years old can legally operate on the roads of the national capital, according to orders issued by the National Green Tribunal (2015) and the Supreme Court (2018). For diesel vehicles, this time period is cut down to 10 years only. Over the past year, the state government has cracked down on vehicles on Delhi’s roads with dated emission standards.

“Deregistered vehicles cannot be sold and the insurance of such vehicles cannot be purchased. Using such vehicles becomes illegal and they can be impounded,” said an official.

To be sure, deregistration is only a legal process, and such vehicles can be illegally used. An official said it is not possible to estimate the total number of vehicles in the Capital because there is a contradiction over the actual number on the road. “A large number of vehicles registered in Delhi are plying in NCR areas and many vehicles registered in NCR are plying in Delhi,” the official said.

Amit Bhatt, managing director (India) of the International Council on Clean Transportation, said while data on the total number of vehicles being registered each day is available, there is no data or mechanism to assess how many of them are actually plying in Delhi. “The trend in Delhi-NCR has been that a lot of these old vehicles are still being used, but we don’t know the exact numbers. In a lot of cases, these vehicles are being sold outside NCR, where they continue to pollute,” Bhatt said.

A transport department official said in the weeks to come, the crackdown on overage vehicles will intensify because the government wants to weed out overage polluting vehicles to check vehicular pollution.