Delhi's great vehicle exit: 8 lakh certificates issued in 4 years; only 82k took NOCs from govt by 2021-22

NEW DELHI: Over eight lakh vehicles, mostly old and end-of-life (ELV) vehicles, have been issued the no objection certificate (NOC) by the transport department over the past four financial years to move out of the city.

Delhi govt data shows that out of the total 8,30,086 vehicles, only 82,340 took NOC till 2021-22. It started rising from the next year and stood at 6.2 lakh till 2022-23, 7.3 lakh till 2023-24 and over 8.3 lakh till 2024-25. The figures for 2025-26 will be released towards the end of this year.Officials said the NOC demand was largely due to the strict enforcement of the National Green Tribunal and Supreme Court orders that had banned diesel vehicles over 10 years and petrol vehicles over 15 years from plying in Delhi-NCR.

The traffic police and the transport department conduct a round-the-year crackdown against them across the city. Their owners face a fine of Rs 10,000 for four-wheelers and Rs 5,000 for two-wheelers, in addition to towing and parking charges, even if the vehicle is found parked in a public space. "The total number of vehicles which took NOC does not include only ELVs; they also include old BS-III and BS-IV vehicles that were yet to get the ELV tag but face plying restrictions due to the imposition of various stages of Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) when air pollution rises, especially during winter," said an official.

Under GRAP stage-III, BS-III petrol and BS-IV diesel four-wheelers are barred from plying in Delhi-NCR, except for essential services. Under the most stringent stage-IV, all diesel vehicles, except those providing essential services, and BS-IV petrol four-wheelers are banned. These curbs are in addition to the permanent ban on the end-of-life vehicles. The deregistration of overage vehicles paints a similar picture.

From a base of 48.8 lakh in 2021-22, the number of deregistered vehicles jumped by 6.1 lakh in 2022-23, followed by annual additions of 3.5 lakh and 3.7 lakh in the subsequent years. While the numbers have declined since the initial crackdown, they remain consistently high, showing that govt continues to cancel registration certificates of ageing vehicles even after the shock enforcement year.Scrapping, however, remains modest. Physical dismantling of end-of-life vehicles surged to 1.4 lakh in 2022-23 but fell sharply to just over 15,800 in 2023-24 before rising again to nearly 25,000 in 2024-25.

Even with this increase, scrapping accounts for barely 5% of the vehicles leaving the city.The cumulative tally of scrapped vehicles by 2024-25 stood at around 1.8 lakh, dwarfed by both NOC transfers and deregistrations. Experts said this showed that the clean-up was largely administrative, with actual environmental gains depending on whether these vehicles were permanently dismantled or simply re-registered in other states.Delhi govt implemented a scrapping policy aimed at removing end-of-life vehicles to cut pollution and improve road safety with financial incentives - discounts on new vehicles, road tax exemptions, lower registration fees and scrap certificates. Scrapping is usually done by people at 12 authorised facilities located in neighbouring cities by booking through the voluntary vehicle scrapping application of central govt.