Fuel ban for old vehicles from July 1: Delhi pump owners seek police protection; fear backlash, chaos

NEW DELHI: Petrol pump owners in the city have written to the Delhi govt requesting the deployment of police or civil defence personnel at fuel stations from July 1, when the rule of no fuel to end-of-life vehicles kicks in.The petrol pump owners said their attendants were not equipped to deal with ugly situations where the vehicle owners forced them to refuel the vehicles. They also feared that the sales would shift to neighbouring towns if the rule was not implemented simultaneously across the national capital region. In a letter to Delhi transport minister Pankaj Kumar Singh, the Delhi Petrol Dealers Association (DPDA) pointed out that consumers have resisted fuel attendants performing such roles in the past, leading to confrontations.

tnn In a letter to Delhi transport minister Pankaj Kumar Singh, the Delhi Petrol Dealers Association added that a pump attendant was shot at in the neighbouring Ghaziabad a few years ago when he refused petrol to "helmetless" bikers. The transport minister could not be contacted for a comment.As per the recent directions of the Commission for Air Quality Management, all end-of-life (EOL) vehicles will be denied fuel in Delhi from July 1 and will be subjected to actions such as deregistration, impounding, and scrapping.

Around 100 teams of traffic and transport department officials will be deployed to flag down EOL vehicles -petrol vehicles aged 15 years or older and diesel vehicles aged 10 years or older - and all 520 fuel stations in the city will be equipped with technology to identify them.

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.Police’s job to enforce rules, not ours: Fuel station operatorsIn his letter to the transport minister, DPDA president Nischal Singhania said their association consistently supported efforts to improve air quality in Delhi and the national capital region and facilitated the installation of Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras in collaboration with the special commissioner of transport at retail outlets to monitor vehicles on Delhi's roads.He, however, added that the responsibility to enforce the Motor Vehicles Act, 1989, and related rules lay with the department of transport and Delhi Police, and should remain with these authorities, and not the fuel station operators. Singhania also pointed out that no standard operating procedure on the enforcement of the rule had so far been shared with the petrol pump dealers by the relevant authorities. "Under the Essential Commodities Act, petrol pump dealers are prohibited from denying fuel to any customer, creating a conflict with the directive," Singhania said.While the new rule will initially be restricted to the national capital territory of Delhi, DPDA also called for its NCR-wide implementation, emphasising that pollution did not follow geographical boundaries. "Delaying the implementation in NCR would shift the sales to adjoining cities rather than remove EOL vehicles from the roads," Singhania said.He also said that the transport department's order of May 13 placed an undue burden on petrol pump dealers for implementing the rule by proposing penal actions against them, including arrest, for non-compliance, which was "neither practical nor acceptable". "Such measures would not only disrupt essential services but would also make this scheme a non-starter," Singhania said.