The National Green Tribunal is in the process to ban sales of diesel cars above or equal 2000cc in 11 more cities in India. While the ban in Delhi-NCR continues, the Green Court has ordered chief secretaries of eight states to submit details of air pollution in their cities. For people not in the know, NGT has asked all these states to submit their reports multiple times, but none of them have done that yet.
Slamming the state secretaries of making the joke of the order, the court has issued an ultimatum demanding the report by Tuesday or else they might face arrest. Some of the major cities where the ban could be imposed are – Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Patna, Jalandhar.
NGT ordered this after hearing a petition that demanded complete ban on diesel cars to bring down the pollution level in the most affected cities. The central government, however, feels that the ban would hurt growth in the Indian automobile industry and has told NGT not to take this decision. A bench headed by NGT Chairman will hear the Centre’s plea on Tuesday along with the petition.
States secretaries have been asked to submit data on level of pollution, total population and the number of vehicles plying in the most polluted cities of their respective states. Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, West Bengal, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu are the states that will submit the details today.
After collecting the data from all the states, NGT will decide if the ban on new diesel car is needed. The bench might also consider ban on vehicles older than 10 years. It was December 2015, when the Supreme Court of India ordered the ban on registration of new diesel vehicles with 2.0-litres in Delhi NCR.
NGT’s Kerala bench also imposed ban on diesel vehicles in some cities of the states The high court, however, put a stay on NGT’s order to ban new diesel vehicles. The ban on old diesel vehicles will remain there.
