Gopal Rai: Today will be real challenge for car curbs

Volunteers to use hidden cameras to take snaps of violators, Didn’t bother about vote bank: CM

The city on Sunday witnessed odd and even car numbers jostling for space on different roads after two days of odd-even scheme being implemented. However, the real test of the 15-day scheme’s effectiveness will be on Monday as a large number of offices were closed during the past two days.

City transport minister Gopal Rai said elaborate arrangements have been made to meet the “real challenge,” as part of which volunteers would be using hidden cameras to take snaps of violators and additional police forces would be fielded to ensure its effective compliance. Earlier in the day, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said that the AAP government had launched the odd-even plan despite apprehensions that the move may have an adverse impact on the party’s vote bank. He, however, asserted that the people have appreciated the initiative and cooperated with the government as protecting the environment is a major challenge.

Mr Rai held a coordination committee meeting attended by senior officers from traffic police, Delhi police, civil defence force, Metro officials and other agency heads engaged in implementation of the ambitious car-rationing scheme, which came into force on January 1. The move to ask the volunteers, comprising civil defence personnel, NCC and NSS cadets, to click pictures assumes significance as they were initially asked to focus on mindset change by resorting to polite tactics like handing out roses.

After the meeting, Mr Rai said: “As we saw that on the first day of this pilot project, people came out with odd-numbered vehicles and on the second day yesterday, even-numbered vehicles plied on the capital roads. This itself is an indication that the mindset of people for environment is changing and I salute all Delhiites for this success of two days.”

The government said that DTC would possibly ferry around 64 lakh commuters Monday onwards, much more than the usual figures, while Metro is expected to carry 32 lakh commuters against the previous data of 26 lakh daily.

Mr Rai said civil defence volunteers would be given mobile cameras and hidden cameras to be used to track violators. “Very strong monitoring would be resorted to and no soft approach would be taken. Additional 100 teams of traffic police will be fielded on roads to monitor.” The minister also mentioned that “a few people” want to ensure the failure of this scheme.

Mr Rai said: “Today one person has written on my Twitter account that tomorrow some miscreants are being sent from Meerut, Haryana and UP to create chaos on Delhi’s roads. I don’t know how much truth lies there now, but I have received such message for the first time. So this shows that how some nervous people can stoop to such levels because of our success.”

The first two days of the drive saw people extending their full cooperation by following the odd-even formula to reduce traffic and air pollution. While 479 people were penalised for violation of the norms on first two days, experts said that the real litmus test for the road-rationing experiment would be Monday when all private and government offices would be open.

Buoyed by the success of the drive, Mr Kejriwal said, “Around one-and-a-half months back when the odd-even plan was being deliberated upon, apprehensions were raised that if the scheme was rolled out, Delhi’s public would be so disappointed with us that we will lose the 2017 MCD election, but the scheme was important as there was an urgent need to address the traffic and pollution problems.”