Dear Mr Hashmi, if you are not serious about implementing the CNG order, why not make an honest submission and stop playing games?

NEW DELHI OCTOBER 12, 2001: Centre for Science and Environment is incensed at the recent announcement from the Delhi transport minister Parvez Hashmi that the new CNG bus operators would not be allowed to ply as state carriage buses but only on a limited scale as contract carriage buses. The banality of official argument is astounding. Hashmi has not been able to figure out how to dole out route permits to the new breed of bus operators who have purchased new CNG buses. These operators are different from the diesel bus owners who have obtained permits to replace their old diesel buses with CNG ones. Hashmi is still looking for clogs within CNG wheels to halt progress and has found yet another ingenious way of discouraging CNG strategy in violation of the Supreme Court order.

Thanks to a loophole in the Central Motor Vehicles Act that allows alternative fuelled vehicles to ply without permits, has encouraged many to invest in new CNG buses and ply them as public transport buses in Delhi. To check the free for all syndrome the Delhi government decided to bring them within the dragnet of permit Raj to regulate their movements on September 27, 2001. But when these unsuspecting bus operators went for their permits they were in for a rude shock. They were told that the government has no schemes to induct them into state carriage as the existing routes are already clogged with no room left for them. Only permit holders who are replacing their old diesel buses with a CNG one can continue on state carriage routes.

Rules don't bend to honour the spirit of the Supreme Court order that is pushing the government to move the entire public bus transport system to CNG to clean up Delhi's air. Hashmi did not deem it fit to push the diesel buses out to the contract carriage mode and induct the private CNG buses into state carriage once the deadline expired on September 30, 2001. It did not even occur to him that the state carriage buses do more mileage compared to the contract carriage buses. If the diesel buses continue as state carriage buses for some more time and are driven more these will contribute more to the pollution load and therefore should be discouraged.

The extent of unimaginative planning is appalling. No new schemes for new routes or new permits for buses have been framed by the Delhi government since 1992-1993. Even now the government has no plans to design more schemes to accommodate the new private CNG bus owners. The official argument is that only if the Supreme Court orders ouster of all diesel buses only then these new CNG buses stand chance of plying as state carriages. As usual the government is abdicating its power to decide and act until the Court clamps down. CSE demands immediate revocation of this policy and induction of all CNG buses as state carriage buses in Delhi.