Delhi’s old car muddle

This article appeared in Civil Society

The Delhi government has taken a U-turn from its initiative to deny fuel and impound diesel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol vehicles older than 15 years, largely due to public backlash. The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), which had given this direction, has now decided to postpone this action to November.

But I’m somewhat amused by this entire episode. I am amused by the sudden public outrage over this directive as many seem to believe this is a new crackdown. But here’s the fact: these vehicles were banned in Delhi nearly seven years ago, on October 30, 2018, when the Delhi government began enforcing a Supreme Court-backed order that prohibits such vehicles not just from operating, but even from being parked or being present in the city. The latest directive was merely an attempt to enforce an old order using a new method.

In fact, law-abiding citizens have been selling their older vehicles ever since the 2018 law. Take my case. I sold my well-maintained 10-year-old Bharat Stage IV diesel car — barely run for 100,000 km — in 2022. It went to a tour operator in Punjab at a bargain price so generous that he still sends me Diwali sweets. I didn’t want to part with the car, but the law left me no choice. And I wasn’t alone. Over the past seven years, lakhs of Delhiites have sold their vehicles to comply with the ban. Of course, the majority of these vehicles have not gone to scrapyards as intended; instead, they’ve been relocated to other parts of the country, polluting their environments instead.

So, why has the Delhi government decided to enforce the refuelling restriction now, seven years after banning these vehicles? More specifically, why has the CAQM issued this direction at this moment? Do they have data showing that the original ban has been ineffective? The answer is no. The fact is, the entire air quality action plan being enforced by the Delhi government and agencies like CAQM is bereft of data. There is no evidence showing the impact of the vehicle ban on air quality — or even tracking the enforcement of the ban itself.

Take the case of enforcement. There is no formal vehicle deregistration system in Delhi. Even when vehicles are scrapped, they remain technically “registered” with the Regional Transport Office (RTO). Owners are expected to voluntarily deregister their vehicles — a process so tedious that few attempt it. This bureaucratic blind spot means the government has no reliable data on how many vehicles remain on Delhi’s roads, let alone how much pollution they continue to cause. And that’s the crux of the issue — an absence of governance systems to enforce or evaluate its actions.

The CAQM’s decision to block fuel sales, therefore, is not driven by scientific insight or robust data. Delhi has spent years creating the illusion of action without building the capacity to measure impact. Despite the relentless headlines on Delhi’s air pollution, there is no data showing whether banning vehicles or halting construction during winter has improved air quality. We’re acting in a blindfolded manner, hoping that symbolic policies will solve real problems.

And that brings us to the real question: does banning 10-year-old diesel and 15-year-old petrol vehicles help? The honest answer: not much.

Vehicles contribute less than 10 percent of Delhi’s PM 2.5 emissions. Of that, the majority comes from two- and three-wheelers. But we know that banning two-wheelers is a political hot potato and therefore difficult to enforce. That means cars — which contribute less than 5 percent to Delhi’s PM 2.5 problem — are the main focus of the ban. The impact of banning cars on air quality, therefore, will be minimal.

This is exactly why the much-hyped odd-even vehicle rationing scheme failed. It ignored the science of air pollution and tried to project political will through traffic gimmicks. Banning cars based on age and denying them fuel is another version of the same performative theatre.

In fact, these policies will do more harm than good to the environment. They prematurely dispose vehicles, pushing people to buy new ones, thereby boosting automobile sales and adding more vehicles to the road. In addition, every new vehicle carries a hidden environmental cost in terms of emissions from raw materials, manufacturing, and logistics.

Rather than fixing arbitrary age limits, a sensible vehicle retirement policy would be based on fitness. Around the world, vehicles are allowed to operate as long as they pass periodic fitness checks, including emissions testing. A 15-year-old car that is well maintained and meets pollution standards is less harmful than a new one, if we consider the environmental impact of a vehicle’s full lifecycle.

But the problem is that India lacks the necessary infrastructure to make this happen. There’s no robust inspection and certification (I&C) system, no reliable pollution testing, and no systematic registration-deregistration process for vehicles. Nor do we have an effective network of End-of-Life Vehicle collection and recycling centres. If we’re serious about reducing vehicular pollution, we must invest in a credible and modern vehicle lifecycle management system.

Let me be very clear: banning polluting vehicles is a good idea. Old, polluting vehicles must be phased out. But they must be banned through a structured, evidence-based, and environmentally sound policy regime — not ad hoc decisions. In the absence of systems, such bans serve more as virtue signalling than pollution control. The air will not get cleaner because you made life harder for a few car owners. It will get cleaner when you treat clean air not as a slogan, but as a regional economy-wide problem — one that needs a long-term plan, and scientific and institutional investment.