News Delhi Delhi pollution: Traffic police slap fines worth Rs 5.85 crore for violating GRAP-3 restrictions on first day

Delhi pollution: Traffic police slap fines worth Rs 5.85 crore for violating GRAP-3 restrictions on first day

Delhi has continued to choke under the 'severe' category of air pollution for the last few days. The restrictions under stage III of the GRAP were imposed on Friday by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM).

Delhi air pollution Image Source : PTI/FILERepresentative Image

In a massive action against those violating the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) III restrictions, Delhi Traffic Police has issued around 550 challans, imposing a total fine of over Rs 5.85 crore on Friday on the first day of the ban, officials said.

As per the police, they also issued challans to 4,855 vehicles imposing a total of Rs 4.8 crore in fines for not having Pollution Under Control Certificates (PUCC) in the national capital on Friday.

Traffic police imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on motorists for not having a valid PUC certificate. These challans can be released from the courts. Notably, under GRAP-3 restrictions, private BS III petrol and BS IV diesel vehicles are banned from roads with violations inviting a penalty of Rs 20,000. 

Inter-state buses, running on diesel and petrol, from the NCR cities to Delhi are also banned. A senior police officer said that they have issued a total of 293 challans for BS-III and BS-IV vehicles in the central, eastern and northern ranges of the city. A total of 2,404 challans have been issued for not having PUCC certificates.

The New Delhi range issued 63 such challans while the western range issued 73 and the southern range issued 121 challans, the officials added. Additionally, southern, and western ranges also issued challans for not having PUCC, they said.

Talking about the action, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Rajiv Kumar Rawal said that they checked around 3,000 vehicles in the three ranges of the traffic police on Friday.

Rawal said, "We have intensified checking especially in the bordering areas and the inter-state buses are also being checked. Vehicles whose entry is prohibited are being turned back from the borders. We have returned around 300 such vehicles. We are also prosecuting the vehicles which do not have a PUCC."

(With inputs from agencies)