Odd-even: Delhi govt to assess over 11 lakh responses to road rationing scheme

New Delhi: Delhi government has received over 11 lakh responses on the future of its car-rationing scheme, as the deadline for public to give their opinion on the issue ended on Monday. The government received the public opinion through emails, missed calls, online forms and suggestions of people whom it reached out to through interactive voice response system. [caption id=“attachment_2569926” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A challan is being issued to a car with a number plate ending with an odd digit. Naresh Sharma/Firstpost.[/caption] “Around 28,300 suggestions have been received through online forms while another 9,000 and 1,82,808 have come through emails and missed called respectively. The government, on its part, has made more than 9,00,000 calls to gather public opinion,” a senior government official said. Now we will analyse the responses, he added. An email-id ‘oddevenidea@gmail.com’ was opened on January 26 to invite public opinion on the scheme, while a dedicated website and a phone line was launched on February 1. Also people’s response was gathered through automated calls through IVR (Interactive Voice Response) where they were given a number of options on the proposed second phase of the odd-even scheme. Apart from these, ‘jan sabhas’ (public meetings) were held across the city on two days to get more feedback. AAP MLAs, who organised the meetings, have claimed that public opinion was “overwhelmingly” in favour of re-introduction of the scheme which was rolled out on January 1 for a fortnight in the first phase. Structured questionnaire was put forth by the government on whether the scheme should be implemented again, if yes, when it should be done and for what duration among others. Four probable launching dates for the second phase were given - February 14, March 1, April 1 and May 1. It had also asked people whether the President, the Vice-President, the Prime Minister and Union ministers should be exempted in the second phase. The status of women drivers, who were exempted in the first phase, will also be decided based on the responses. The government is likely to implement the next phase of scheme after it seeks to first address two major concerns related to commuting by school children and the possibility of people purchasing another car to circumvent the restrictions. PTI