 "A man rides his bicycle next to Indian soldiers marching in front of India Gate on a smoggy morning in New Delhi")
With vehicle owners anxious about implementation of the odd-even car number plying system here from January 1, Friday, Twitter India has joined hands with the city government to give real-time information about available public transport in an area, through a @TransportDelhi and #pollutionfreeDelhi handle.
Women can get this information through direct messaging without disclosing their location and destination on the public platform. Gopal Rai, the city government's transport minister, said on Monday he hoped these initiatives, and the 'PoochhO' app that can be downloaded on smartphones, would enable car owners to use public transport with minimum inconvenience between January 1 and 15, when the experiment is on.
Cars operating on compressed natural gas are exempt and Indraprastha Gas will be issuing hologrammed stickers from Tuesday morning for affixing on the estimated 500,000 such vehicles in the National Capital Region.
As for city police commissioner B S Bassi’s warning (the police here do not report to the chief minister but to the centrally-appointed lieutenant governor) that none except the police are to enforce the rule, Rai said, “Bassi should not speak like a party spokesperson. He is spreading misinformation. 10,000 Civil Defence volunteers under the Delhi government will be assisting the public. Enforcement of the law and penalising of violators can only be done by the Delhi Police, transport enforcement wing and divisional commissioners.”
Violators, he noted, would have to pay a Rs 2,000 fine. Car pooling, he added, was being encouraged in a big way. For localities or clusters where allocation of odd–even cars was a problem, he offered, the government was ready to organise buses for such clusters, depending on the demand.
He said 3,000 additional buses, auto-rickshaws and metro rail trips would all be put into service for the fortnight.
