Unfit vehicles choke city’s arterial roads

The sudden rise in breakdown of commercial vehicles on Delhi’s arterial roads leading to massive traffic congestion, mostly during peak hours, has prompted the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) to take cognizance of the problem.

The sudden rise in breakdown of commercial vehicles on Delhi’s arterial roads leading to massive traffic congestion, mostly during peak hours, has prompted the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) to take cognizance of the problem.

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There has been a sudden spurt in such cases of breakdowns, which directly impacts traffic mostly at a time when thousands of people drive to their work. The Delhi Traffic Police said that these breakdowns take place during night or early morning when commercial vehicles are authorised to ply on roads.

During the last two months, a whopping 650 vehicles broke down on the national Capital’s essential arteries.

"Apart from overloading, poor vehicular health, inefficient and overstrained drivers are the main causes," said Satyendra Garg, joint commissioner of police (traffic). "If the transport authorities issue fitness certificates after properly checking vehicular health, breakdowns can be averted to some extent."

While they remove smaller vehicles in short time, the police fail to remove heavy ones due to lack of resources. Over a year ago, the Traffic Police had written to the L-G, proposing a steep increase in the penalty from R100 to R1,000 for breakdown of goods vehicles through a legal amendment. “However, the proposal is yet to see the light of the day,” a source said.

SP Singh, senior fellow of Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training (IFTRT), said that the onus for such breakdowns lies on the transport department.

“The prime reason is overloading by vehicles. The transport department should keep an eye at the entry and exit points on such vehicles and disallow entry to the overloaded ones,” he said.

Ranjit Singh, deputy commissioner, Delhi transport department said, “We are going to take some concrete action soon on the issue.”

The issue of repeated breakdowns on Delhi roads was discussed in a meeting of National Road Safety Council on Wednesday. Earlier, chief minister Sheila Dikshit too had taken a serious note of the issue and asked the departments concerned to come out with a concrete plan.