Highlights
- Delhi transport department has de-registered more than 50 lakh vehicles so far this year
- The de-registered vehicles (both petrol & diesel) cannot ply on roads of Delhi, the officials said
- The de-registered vehicles included 46 lakh petrol vehicles older than 15 years
Delhi air quality: Delhi recorded a minimum temperature of 17 degrees Celsius on Wednesday (October 19), a notch below the normal for this time of the year, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
The maximum temperature is likely to settle around 33 degrees Celsius.
Delhi's air quality continued to be in the poor category for the fourth consecutive day and any improvement is unlikely over the next few days.
The air quality index (AQI) stood at 241 at around 9:00 am.
At least seven out of the 35 monitoring stations in the city recorded the air quality in the "very poor" category.
An AQI between zero and 50 is considered good, 51 and 100 satisfactory, 101 and 200 moderate, 201 and 300 poor, 301 and 400 very poor, and 401 and 500 severe.
According to the Decision Support System of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), the transport sector accounted for 18.5 per cent of PM2.5 pollution in Delhi on Tuesday.
The Early Warning System of the IITM said the air quality was likely to remain in the poor and very poor categories over the next six days.
Over 50 lakh vehicles de-registered:
Meanwhile, the Delhi transport department has de-registered more than 50 lakh vehicles so far this year, according to official data.
The de-registered vehicles include diesel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol vehicles older than 15 years, officials said, adding this is the highest number of vehicles deregistered in a year.
The transport department has been cracking down on polluting vehicles in a bid to curb vehicular pollution.
According to the data, 53,38,045 vehicles have been de-registered between 2018 and 2022, with 50,25,447 vehicles being deregistered till October 17 this year.
In 2018, the Supreme Court had ordered that plying of diesel and petrol vehicles older than 10 years and 15 years, respectively is banned in Delhi.
The de-registered vehicles included 46 lakh petrol vehicles older than 15 years, 4,15,362 diesel vehicles older than 10 years and 1,46,681 petrol and CNG vehicles.
The de-registered vehicles cannot ply on the roads of Delhi, the officials said.
As on January 31, Delhi had about 13.4 million (13,402,875) registered vehicles out of which more than 7.8 million (7866867) have been categorised as “active” vehicles by the transport department.
The active vehicles are vehicles which have a valid registration and are yet to hit the ‘end of life’ age and are fit to ply on city roads, according to a report by the transport department.
(With PTI inputs)
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