New Delhi : Reprimanding reports by a section of media that the Delhi Government would continue with odd-even scheme even after January 15, Transport Minister Gopal Rai on Saturday said the first phase of scheme would be over as per earlier announced schedule.
“After January 15, the Government will analyse among other things data collected from various places, people’s participation in the scheme, response to and services made available by the public transport system, and then we will decide the future course of action,” said Rai.
“On Friday, we responded to the information sought by the Delhi High Court. We already have data collected from various places by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), but we also produced data collected and trained recoded in the past seven days by the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA), a body formed by the Supreme Court, before the high court. The court has fixed January 11 for the next hearing. We will chalk out our future course of action after the court’s decision,” he added.
Refuting another report that the Government has implemented the odd-even scheme “illegally”, the minister said the imposition of the scheme was very much in accordance with the existing section 115 of the Motor Vehicle Act.
“A total of 5,893 challans have been issued in Delhi thus far, of which 2,912 challans have been issued by Sub-Divisional Magistrates (SDMs) and 2,260 by the traffic police. Besides, Enforcement wing of the Transport Department has challaned 721 cars and 1,943 autos,” he informed reporters at a press conference.
A total of 13,528 calls, including 395 complaints regarding buses, autos or traffic, have been received on two helpline numbers, he added. (ANI)