Centre for Science and Environment welcomes the Supreme Court verdict that extension of the deadline for conversion of buses to CNG should come with personal accountability of the Delhi government. The Principle Secretary Transport Department of Delhi, Ashok Pradhan will be personally responsible for the implementation of the Court order by September 30, 2001.

In a landmark Judgement today the Chief Justice bench ruled that the deadline to convert all buses to CNG that is going to expire on April 1, 2001 will be extended till September 30, 2001. Only that number of diesel buses will be allowed to ply on the road after April 1, 2001, for which firm orders for CNG buses have been placed. Whatever DTC buses that remain on road should be made available on a priority basis to schools from April 1. But the most significant aspect of this ruling is that the Principle Secretary Transport, Delhi will be responsible for ensuring that only people who have placed firm orders for CNG buses will be allowed to ply their diesel buses till these are replaced with CNG buses on September 30, 2001. Each diesel bus will have to a display a sticker on the windscreen showing that a CNG bus has been ordered to replace this bus and each and every sticker will have to be signed by Mr Ashok Pradhan.

Only by fixing responsibility as the chief Justice bench has done it is possible to guarantee that the government will not nap this time.  So far the state government has dragged its feet to implement this order and have been busy finding excuses to sabotage its implementation. They are more bothered about petty industrial interest than the health of millions, using chaos in public transport as a weapon to pressurise the Court.

Today everybody is talking about the immense hardship that commuters are going to face, particularly the school children, when diesel buses will go off the road. But it is more important to keep in mind that school children are more vulnerable to the ill effects of diesel. A study published by the US based Natural Resource Defence Council in January 2001 offers frightening conclusions. The study assessed the cancer risk to children from sustained exposures to diesel exhaust while travelling in school buses for 1-2 hours every day during school year of 180-200 days over a period of 10 years. It concludes that for every 1 million children 26-46 children may eventually develop cancer from the excess diesel exhaust they inhale. This means that a child riding school bus is being exposed to as much as 46 times the cancer risk considered significant by the US Environment Protection Agency. It also says one CNG bus achieves emissions reductions equivalent to removing 85-94 cars from road. Yet another study conducted in Sweden shows that the cancer potency of one Euro I Indian diesel car is equal to 24 petrol cars and 80 CNG cars.

It will be easier for the Delhi citizens to accept the hardship on April 1, 2001 if they keep in mind that more than 50,000 additional deaths can be prevented over the next ten years if we support the Supreme Court order on moving all buses to CNG as scheduled.