Delhi: End-of-Life vehicles at fuel pumps will get impounded from July 1

Hindustan Times

15 hours ago

Beginning July 1, any End-of-Life (EoL) vehicle – diesel cars other than 10 years, and petrol older than 15 years – that arrives at Delhi's 382 petrol and diesel stations will be denied fuel impounded on the spot and sent directly to a scrapping facility, the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) said on Friday. Delhi has 382 petrol and diesel stations. (HT Archive)
The enforcement of the new rule will be carried out by joint teams of the Delhi transport department, Delhi Traffic Police, and municipal bodies, stationed at fuel stations that are equipped with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras, officials said.
In a joint press conference, CAQM, along with the Delhi transport department and traffic police, said a total of 7.78 million vehicles were screened via ANPR cameras between June 1 and 23. Of these, 136,000 were flagged as EoL, and nearly 800,000 were found without valid Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificates.
'This means around 300,000 vehicles are scanned every day, out of which 6,000 are EoL and 35,000 lack a PUC,' said CAQM member (technical) Virinder Sharma. 'As a vehicle enters a fuelling station, the ANPR system captures its number plate and checks the VAHAN database for registration details, fuel type and age. If flagged as EoL, an alert will notify the fuel operator to deny service. Simultaneously, the violation is logged and sent to enforcement teams.'
ANPR cameras have now been installed at 498 fuelling stations across the city, including 116 CNG stations. While EoL vehicles will not be penalised at CNG pumps for now, PUC checks will still be conducted.
The new policy follows CAQM's April 23 directive, which sought liquidation of all EoLs in NCR in a phased manner – in compliance with previous directions by the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal (NGT).
It mandates a phased ban on fuelling EoL vehicles across the National Capital Region (NCR) — starting with Delhi from July 1, five high vehicle density NCR districts (Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar and Sonipat) from November 1, 2025, and the rest of NCR from April 1, 2026.
'The installation of ANPR cameras in the rest of NCR is under progress,' Sharma added.
Niharika Rai, secretary-cum-commissioner of the Delhi transport department, said her department was ready to enforce the new rules. 'We've run extensive awareness campaigns and held meetings with stakeholders. Vehicles flagged by the ANPR system will be impounded and towed to scrapping facilities. However, violators can pay a fine and submit an affidavit to retrieve their vehicles,' she said. Rai added all EoL vehicles identified at fuelling stations in June were issued e-challans automatically upon detection.
The EoL guidelines for 2024 specify fines of ₹ 10,000 for four-wheelers and ₹ 5,000 for two-wheelers. In addition to these fines, owners must also pay towing and parking charges and submit an undertaking that the vehicle will be removed from Delhi's jurisdiction.
According to the VAHAN database, Delhi has approximately 6.2 million EoL vehicles — 4.1 million two-wheelers and 1.8 million four-wheelers. In the NCR districts of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan, there are another 2.75 million, 1.24 million, and 610,000 EoL vehicles respectively.
Special commissioner (traffic) Ajay Chaudhary said that dedicated enforcement teams will be deployed at each fuelling station. 'The EoL rule has existed for some time, but stricter enforcement is now essential to improve air quality. We are assessing each fuel station's specific needs — whether it operates 24x7 or is located in a dense fuel station cluster — to deploy staff accordingly,' he said.