Bringing two-wheelers under odd-even not feasible: Kejriwal

NEW DELHI:Pointing out the national Capital’s public transport system is inadequate to handle the shift in commuters' rush, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today announced that applying odd-even traffic restrictions to two-wheelers is not practical until the public transport is improved which in turn, he said, would take at least another two years.

Ananya Panda

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 19

Pointing out the national Capital’s public transport system is inadequate to handle the shift in commuters' rush, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today announced that applying odd-even traffic restrictions to two-wheelers is not practical until the public transport is improved which in turn, he said, would take at least another two years.

Such a move would result in “chaos and complete anarchy” on the city’s roads, he said while speaking at an event on “right to clean air” organsied by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) here.

Also, the Delhi government today refuted that some city roads faced traffic snarls due to odd-even car license formula saying teh jams were resulting from construction and repair work done by Delhi Metro rail Corporation (DMRC), Public Works Department (PWD) and Delhi Jal Board (DJB).

In this regard, Transport Minister Gopal Rai, who also said compliance of the odd-even rule has gone up as compared to the first two days, has directed DMRC, PWD and DJB to carry out all construction and repair works at night during the ongoing second round of odd-even scheme.

Rejecting the perception that two-wheelers were being ruled out from inclusion in the odd-even measure as part of the Aam Aadmi Party's vote-bank strategy, Kejriwal attributed the decision to the fact that most of people preferred carpooling as an alternative instead of metro or bus.

Less breakdown of DTC buses: Rai

Noting that compliance with the scheme has bettered, the Transport Minister also said that despite being very hot yesterday when breakdown of buses generally rise, there were about 200 breakdowns of DTC buses- less than half than the normal 400-500 seen during this time- reported from various areas to the control room and 120 of them were attended in 30-35 minutes.

On this, Rai also rejected reports of traffic jams on roads due to odd-even scheme saying there was no jam in the city due to breakdown of buses on roads or due to the scheme yesterday.

‘Inner areas show less pollution level’

The national Capital’s pollution levels varied between “poor and very poor”, even as the Delhi Government today claimed that inner areas of the Capital have recorded “less pollution” as compared to the border areas, where its level has “significantly risen” during the second phase of odd-even anti-pollution scheme.

The Chief Minister today claimed that the odd-even road-rationing scheme has cut down pollution by at least 15 per cent in January though this was denied by environmental organisations adding that the initiative experiment only helped manage “peak” levels of pollution.