Odd-even back from April 15 in Delhi: Kejriwal

The second phase of the odd-even vehicle scheme will be implemented in Delhi from April 15 to 30. Women, VIPs and two-wheelers will remain exempted, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced on Thursday.

Addressing a press conference, Kejriwal said as per the feedback received by the government, an overwhelming majority of the respondents were in favour of re-implementation of the scheme.

The chief minister said that the government was "seriously deliberating" on the idea of enforcing the scheme every month for a fortnight while admitting the city's public transport was not capable of handling the resultant passenger rush.

The scheme was first implemented from January 1-15 as part of the government's anti-air pollution initiative.

The chief minister, in a separate interaction with senior editors, had earlier said that the scheme will not be permanently enforced as doing so will make people look for ways to beat the system, including bribing policemen.

Under the scheme, private cars having odd registration numbers are allowed to ply on odd dates and those with even numbers on even dates.

"The biggest argument in favour of implementing the scheme every month for 15 days is that one individual will not face trouble for more than seven days due to the nature of the scheme. If Delhi's people support us, it can be implemented," he said.

The chief minister said that the government is procuring 3,000 new buses, including 1,000 luxury ones, which will be fielded by December as part of efforts to ramp up public transport. He said two-floor elevated Bus Rapid Transit corridors will be constructed to augment transport infrastructure.

Kejriwal said that 275 out of 276 Mohalla Sabhas (corner meetings) organised by AAP MLAs and sub-divisional magistrates favoured return of the odd-even restrictions.

He said that the government received feedback from people through e-mails, missed calls, interactive voice response and submission of online forms.

"We received feedback through over 1.13 lakh missed calls, 2 lakh IVRS responses and 9,000 e-mails," said Kejriwal, adding 53 per cent of the respondents wanted the scheme back as early as February 14.

He said only 1,800 people said that they will buy a second car to beat the restrictions and that almost everybody wanted no exemptions to the VIPs.

"But I want to tell the VIPs that we will not fight with you as we are often accused of. We would like you to follow the restrictions as shown by the Chief Justice of India," Kejriwal said.

The public feedback exercise was carried out between January 26 and February 8.

Although there was unanimity that the scheme had managed to reduce congestion levels, pollution data released by several agencies were contradictory about its impact in the first phase.

The chief minister said metro ridership had gone up by only 0.4 per cent but buses saw a seven per cent jump during in the first phase. He said private buses will be fielded in the city like last time.

Image: Arvind Kejriwal. Photograph: Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters