The apex court of India in going full throttle in order to curb the pollution threat that is hovering on our country, especially on the National Capital Region (NCR). We have had a series of bans, and rules implemented by the top most authority of India that caused a huge inconvenience to the citizen of the NCR. The ban on registration of new diesel vehicles over the capacity of 2000cc pushed automakers in a precarious situation and the order is still imposed in the region.
Also, the very famous, as well as infamous, Odd-Even formula came into existence in the same period and created a chaos. The rule exempted almost every central government official, Diplomats, two-wheeler, women drivers and a few lucky fellas, while it disrupted the lives of the remaining unlucky ones. Just when everybody thought the nightmare was over, the next version of the rule kicked in with newer regulations. And now, the Supreme Court is back with its order to not allow petrol and diesel-powered taxis to run in the NCR from 1 May.
Last year in December, the Supreme Court of India ordered the conversion of diesel and petrol powered cabs into CNG by March 1, 2016. The order was then extended to 31 March 2016 and then till today, 30 April. The petrol cabbies had the resources to help them comfortably oblige to the rule, but the diesel cabs are having a hard time.
The taxi owners pleaded to the authority by stating that there is no technology available in the market to convert diesel to CNG, but to that the officials of the court reportedly replied that the cab owners were given sufficient amount of time and alternatives should have had been implemented by now. The court rejected the plea and said that there will be no further extension to the rule. So now, cab owners have less than 24 hours to come up with a solution, otherwise, they will have to stay back home!
While the move might seem harsh and hasty, but I think this is the time to take harsh and hadty decision, atleast our supreme Court is taking responsibility to control pollution, this will cause problems to people but untill problem is in front of us we human have tendency to not do anything about a problem untill it reaches our doorstep, these type of initiatives will push start the efforts towards utilizing alternate energy sources, a very harsh move by SC but the one we needed.