End of road for end-of-life vehicles from July 1: CAQM
India currently adheres to
Bharat Stage VI
, or BS VI, emission norms for vehicular fuels, but there are old cars that still run on BS-II and BS III standards. "The EOL policy started around 2015. The Supreme Court took notice of it in 2018 and Delhi govt began implementing the policy," said Virinder Sharma, member (technical), Commission for Air Quality Management. "However, the implementation halted when the matter was taken to the courts. Now, it's time to act, given the huge number of such vehicles in Delhi and NCR. That's why
CAQM
issued this directive No. 89 to end this problem."
According to CAQM, there are 62 lakh EOL vehicles in Delhi, of which 41 lakh are two-wheelers. A CAQM official said that the fuel stations in the city have been equipped with
automatic number plate recognition
technology, enabling them to track and record vehicles through the centralised Vahan database. In 2024, 39,273 EOL vehicles were impounded in Delhi.
CAQM stated that plans to install similar systems at the 156 entry points into Delhi will follow soon to prevent such vehicles from driving into the city. "Till now, 3.6 crore vehicles have been screened through this system and 4.9 lakh identified as end-of-life. In addition, 29.5 lakh vehicles have been forced to renew their pollution-under-control certificates," revealed Sharma.
Sharma added that like Delhi, the rules will also apply to the high-vehicle-density cities of Gurgaon, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar and Sonipat from Nov 1. This will be extended to all the NCR districts from April 1, 2026. CAQM pointed out that several studies have highlighted how overaged vehicles contributed significantly to pollution in the NCR. "BS IV vehicles have 4.5 times higher PM emissions than BS VI vehicles," the CAQM official said. As of March 2025, Haryana had 2.7 lakh EOL vehicles, UP 1.3 lakh and Rajasthan 6.2 lakh.
When asked about public buses arriving from other states to designated stations in Delhi, such as Kashmere Gate or Anand Vihar ISBTs and getting refuelled at their centralised stations, officials said that a framework of action against them would be formulated soon.
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