Delhi government will continue with the odd-even scheme for a period of 15 days as planned, Transport minister Gopal Rai today said asserting that the mindset of 90 per cent of people have changed due to the scheme.
Rai's remark came a day after the Delhi High Court asked the AAP government to consider if the scheme can be restricted to a week.
According to the Transport minister, government has taken the decision of introducing odd-even scheme as per law and won't be able to come out with such experiment again and again after 15 days.
Rai said that since odd-even scheme has come into force, 80 per cent of people, who used cars for their work, are carpooling.
He further said the government would apprise the court that it will be able to undertake a "proper analysis" with 15 days' data in hand.
"The odd-even scheme will continue for 15 days as government has taken this decision as per law. We won't be able to introduce such experiment again and again.
"We want to analysis data of 15 days so that we will confidently take decision so as to reduce pollution in Delhi," Rai said, adding that the car-rationing scheme has been introduced with practical approach.
The minister said that the reduction in pollution and traffic is different thing, but the mindset of 90 per cent of people have changed due to odd-even scheme which is a big achievement for the government.
Rai and Delhi Home Minister Satyendar Jain today held a review meeting on odd-even scheme with officials from different departments.
"Officers have submitted a report on the service of public transport. Metro has a capacity of ferrying 32 lakh passengers every day. Besides, 40-45 lakh people are travelling in DTC buses, but buses have still capacity of ferrying 8-10 lakh additional passengers.
"Buses are plying empty for around two and a half hours. We are getting good response from the people regarding odd-even scheme," he said.
He also said that government wanted to do car-free day
across the national capital instead of one-particular road stretch.
Rai said we studied odd-even formula of Beijing and only thereafter, we introduced traffic-rationing scheme.
"We have got to know that some of traffic police and civil defence personnel, who have been deployed at different locations in view of odd-even scheme, are not doing their duties properly.
"Transport Commissioner has been asked to communicate with department concerned on this issue. Besides, 40,000 people have downloaded PoochO app in their smartphones," he said.
The Delhi High Court had yesterday asked the AAP government to consider if it can be restricted to a week instead of a fortnight as planned.
Terming as "vague" the status report submitted by the government on implementation of the scheme, the court had also sought information about the pollution caused by taxis running on diesel and CNG which have been kept out of the purview of the odd-even formula.
It had also sought data related to changes in the pollution level between January 1 and 7, the day the scheme completed a week.
