Delhi government, agencies agree cap on vehicles needed to ease congestion

The cap on the number of vehicles being registered may not come immediately since the Delhi government wants to first bolster public transport and will wait till a planned expansion of the bus fleet is completed.

The Delhi government, the traffic police and representatives of municipal corporations have agreed that a cap on the number of vehicles being registered is needed as a long-term solution to ease congestion in the national capital, according to officials who attended a high-level meeting on the issue on Tuesday.

Delhi chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev has formed 12 committees that will find ways to decongest areas around the city’s 206 metro stations. (HT File)

But the curbs may not come immediately since the government wants to first bolster public transport and will wait till a planned expansion of the bus fleet is completed. For now, Delhi chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev, who presided over Tuesday’s meeting, formed 12 committees that will find ways to decongest areas around the city’s 206 metro stations.

“It was discussed in the meeting that areas around metro stations have now become traffic bottlenecks. Detailed surveys will now be conducted by the committees in their respective zones. The recommendations will also include parking plans for para-transit modes like e-rickshaws and identification of hawking and passenger waiting zones,” an urban development department official who attended the meeting said on condition of anonymity.

The committees have been asked to submit their reports by March 31.

Hindustan Times reported on Monday that the parliamentary standing committee on home affairs asked the Union and Delhi governments to come up with a plan to restrict new vehicle registrations in Delhi and curb entry of vehicles from outside. It also asked the Delhi Integrated Multi Modal Transit System (DIMTS) to conduct a study on the impact that non-personal transport and taxi aggregators have on the city’s traffic flow.

Following this, the chief secretary on Tuesday convened a meeting to discuss these traffic management measures, in which DIMTS also agreed to conduct the study on cabs and said it would submit its report in three months. All stakeholders disagreed over the plan to restrict movement of vehicles coming from other states into Delhi.

The committee, government officials said, will be headed by the deputy commissioner of all the 12 zones in Municipal Corporations of Delhi. It will include members of the civic bodies, Public Works Department (PWD), state transport department, traffic police, metro officials and experts.

On the plan to restrict the number registrations, officials who attended the meeting said that all agencies — Delhi government, traffic police, municipal corporations and the Unified Traffic and Transportation Infrastructure (Planning and Engineering) Centre, or UTTIPEC — agreed to the idea.

“The traffic police said in the meeting that at least 700,000 new cars are being added in Delhi every year. No stakeholder raised any objection to the idea of the restricting the number of registrations. But, it was felt that before starting such a policy, Delhi’s public transport network should be improved. So, agencies were directed to expedite the roll out of new buses this year and augment last-mile connectivity,” said another official who attended the meeting, also requesting anonymity. Against the need for 11,000 buses, Delhi at present has 5,460 buses. Around 3,000 buses are expected to be rolled out in batches later this year.

The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) suggested in the meeting that vehicle registrations should be linked to proof that the owners had adequate parking.