Long queues, heated debates, and a chaotic situation. That's what petrol pump owners in Delhi are worried about facing when the rule of no fuel for end-of-life vehicles kicks in.
Starting July 1, all end-of-life (EOL) vehicles in the city will be denied fuel and may face deregistration, impounding, or scrapping. Following this, petrol pump owners have urged the Delhi government to deploy police or civil defence personnel at filling stations starting July 1, TOI reported.
In a letter to Delhi transport minister Pankaj Kumar Singh, the Delhi Petrol Dealers Association (DPDA) said the attendants at fuel stations were not equipped to deal with ugly situations where the vehicle owners forced them to refuel the vehicles. As per the report, the owners said they also feared that the sales would shift to neighbouring towns if the rule was not implemented simultaneously across the national capital region (NCR).
As per the report, the association also pointed out that consumers have resisted fuel attendants performing such roles in the past, leading to confrontations. They said a pump attendant was shot at in Ghaziabad a few years ago when he refused petrol to "helmetless" bikers. The transport minister could not be contacted for a comment.
Around 100 teams of traffic and transport department officials will be deployed to flag down EOL vehicles, which include petrol vehicles aged 15 years or older and diesel vehicles aged 10 years or older, and all 520 fuel stations in the city will be equipped with technology to identify them.
In the letter quoted by the TOI, DPDA president Nischal Singhania said their association consistently supported efforts to improve air quality in Delhi and the NCR and facilitated the installation of Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras in collaboration with the special commissioner of transport at retail outlets to monitor vehicles on Delhi's roads. He, however, added that the responsibility to enforce the Motor Vehicles Act, 1989, and related rules lay with the Department of Transport and Delhi Police, and should remain with these authorities, and not the fuel station operators.
Singhania also pointed out that no standard operating procedure on the enforcement of the rule had so far been shared with the petrol pump dealers by the relevant authorities.
"Under the Essential Commodities Act, petrol pump dealers are prohibited from denying fuel to any customer, creating a conflict with the directive," Singhania was quoted by TOI.
As per the report, while the new rule will initially be restricted to the national capital territory of Delhi, DPDA also called for its NCR-wide implementation, emphasising that pollution did not follow geographical boundaries.
The DPDA president also said the transport department's order of May 13 placed an undue burden on petrol pump dealers for implementing the rule by proposing penal actions against them, including arrest, for non-compliance, which was "neither practical nor acceptable" and “Such measures would not only disrupt essential services but would also make this scheme a non-starter”, the report added.
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