Even as Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal plans to extend the Odd-Even scheme in Delhi, the Supreme Court has raised doubts about the effectivity of the scheme that was envisaged by the Delhi government to arrest the degrading environmental condition in the national capital.
The Supreme Court has asked NCT Delhi to provide details of Air Quality Index(AQI) data of Delhi during the period in which odd-even scheme was implemented by the Delhi government. As per reports, the apex court ha directed the Delhi government, central government and Central Pollution Control Board for Delhi’s pollution data for October and till November 14.
The court will examine the pollution levels on a day-by-day basis from the start of Odd-Even till November 14 to determine if the scheme had any impact on the pollution of the city.
The apex court had asked for empirical data suggesting that the odd-even had actually helped in reducing the pollution levels of the national capital.
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In addition to this, the court has also issued a notice to the Delhi government on a Public Interest Litigation(PIL) filed by an advocate Sanjiv Kumar, challenging the Kejriwal government on the odd-even scheme and terming it an illegal classification of vehicles. The court has listed the matter to be heard on November 15.
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Even as questions are being raised about the effectiveness of the odd-even scheme in lowering the pollution levels in Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal hinted at the extension of the much-debated scheme.
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The Supreme Court had last week asked the NCT Delhi the rationale behind bringing in the odd-even scheme. The bench headed by Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta questioned the government on the extent of the scheme since it was applied only for private cars, leaving out 2 wheelers, 3 wheelers and taxis which are much more polluting than cars. The court had then asked the Delhi government to place data to determine if any significant drop is witnessed in the pollution levels by restricting plying of private cars.