Delhi isn't an island, can it impose odd-even formula unilaterally, asks PIL

Announcing the blueprint for the odd-even formula on Thursday, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal sought to address citizens’ concerns and confusions. But his blueprint did not seem to have considered the contentions raised through a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Delhi High Court on Wednesday hence running the risk of a legal challenge before it can be implemented. Since the court took up the PIL for hearing on Wednesday, a day before the blueprint was announced, it advised the Delhi government to consider the contentions raised in the PIL before finalising the blueprint. While posting the case to 6 January, the court told the petitioners that if the blueprint failed to address their grievances they could come move the vacation bench even before the scheduled hearing. The petitioners — Gunjan Khanna, a Noida-based restauranteur with businesses in Delhi and Manoj Kumar, managing partner of a legal firm, Hammurabi Solomon — have raised a clutch of issues that they suggest directly impact their right to livelihood and that of millions of others living in the National Capital Region (NCR). Manoj Kumar told Firstpost that from a preliminary reading of the blueprint it seems like their grievances have not been addressed. “We will be approaching the vacation bench of the High Court on Monday, 28 December,” he said. [caption id=“attachment_2559694” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] AFP image.[/caption] The odd-even formula is set to take off from 1 January 2016 for a period of 15 days. Vehicles with odd registration numbers will be allowed to ply on odd dates and even numbers on even dates. Violators will be fined Rs 2,000 per incident. The central theme of the PIL is that this kind of a unilateral decision-making runs counter to the socio-economic reality of Delhi. It is a city that lives in, lives off and lives with peripheral satellite towns which, together with Delhi, form one of the biggest socio-economic zones of the country. Even administratively, Delhi is part of the National Capital Region (NCR) with its own development board. The National Capital Territory of Delhi, of which Arvind Kejriwal is the chief minister, is a part of the NCR which includes massive urban settlements such as Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida and Ghaziabad spanning the two states of Haryana and Uttarpradesh. These settlements, and many other smaller towns, feed manpower for Delhi’s economic activity. By emerging as big economic centres themselves, they have also helped reduce the load on Delhi’s infrastructure. That’s what the PIL seeks to point out: “NCR is India’s largest and one of the world’s largest agglomerations with a population of over 47,000,000 as per the 2011 Census. All the areas of NCR together generated GDP of $128.9 billion in 2011-12, which was 7.5 percent of the Indian GDP. It is a well-known fact that these regions are located in different states such as Uttar Pradesh and Haryana and each state is differently developed. All have infrastructure and connectivity problems. Millions reach Delhi from these satellite towns for work and vice versa. Further, these neighbouring areas were developed with the main motive providing impetus to industries. And most importantly, they provide employment to several persons. A majority of places in Delhi or in the satellite towns are not well connected with public transport and the only option is a private vehicle. If the scheme of odd and even numbers is implemented every alternate day, the satellite towns – the PIL says – will become inaccessible to several persons who do not have the registration number of the vehicle which is applicable on that given day. The second important concern that has been raised in the PIL is Delhi’s connectivity with its satellites towns. Delhi is connected with Noida and Ghaziabad primarily through cars. Everyday, nearly 1,10,000 cars travel between these cities. With the implementation of the odd-even scheme, at least 55,000 of the cars plying between the cities will be rendered ineligible for driving. Now, take a look at the connectivity of the two cities via metro. Both Vaishali metro station in Ghaziabad and Noida City Centre, metro trains run packed in peak hours. The average daily footfall at Vaishali metro station is 40,000 and the Noida City Centre is 30,000. If all those people rendered ineligible to drive, switch to metro, the total average footfall per day will become around 60,000 at Noida and 65,000 at Vaishali. Therefore, the burden on public transport in these neighbouring cities will be beyond manageable and will lead to chaos. In addition, there is no clear-cut guideline for vehicles travelling through the midnight and those who are travelling from different states through the city. If Delhi is part of an economic and administrative zone spanning three states and three state governments, how can it impose restrictions on movement without regard to the uneven development of public transport in the satellite towns that feed it and feed off it? Does it impinge on the right to livelihood of the citizens of not just Delhi but also of the millions who live around? “The odd-even scheme fails to deal with the main causes of pollution in the city, apart from failing to appreciate that this is an issue that can only be tackled by having an action across the complete National Capital Region (NCR) and not just Delhi. Instead of tackling the twin challenges of scaling up public transport facilities in the city and improving traffic management systems, the government is taking to a knee-jerk reaction,” co-petitioner Manoj Kumar told Firstpost. This is the question that the Delhi government maybe be asked, among many others, (http://www.firstpost.com/india/odd-even-formula-mr-kejriwal-do-you-have-answers-for-these-questions-2557558.htmlwhen the court hears the petition on Monday.