Allow Delhi-NCR's Senior Citizens to Keep Their Vehicles Beyond 15 Years
Allow Delhi-NCR's Senior Citizens to Keep Their Vehicles Beyond 15 Years
Why this petition matters
I am a 69-year-old Noida resident and my Maruti Suzuki SX4 with a petrol engine will complete its 15 years in May 2023.
According to the rules in Delhi-NCR, petrol vehicles over 15 years old and diesel vehicles over 10 years old will not be allowed to ply on the roads. This is at variance with the Central government’s policy, which allows personal vehicles a lifetime of 20 years and commercial vehicles 15 years. The Centre’s policy doesn’t classify vehicles according to their fuel type.
I believe that in Delhi-NCR, the 15-year clause for petrol vehicles should be relaxed for senior citizens.
A majority of senior citizens, which includes me, are not entitled to any government pensions and there isn't a great source of income for us. We do not have access to social security. We sometimes are dependent on our children while some of us often do not have that choice too.
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Our life post retirement depends on our savings. The ever increasing rates of inflation, healthcare expenses and declining rates of interest makes the lives of senior citizens like me extremely uncertain and challenging. The last 2 years of pandemic has worsened the blow.
Senior citizens mostly use personal vehicles on very few occasions, for visits to doctors, grocery stores, temples, and a few relatives at most. Senior citizens cannot be expected to scrap their vehicles after 15 years. It is nearly impossible for the majority of them to spend a huge sum on buying a new car at that age from their diminished savings.
Would Delhi-NCR's air pollution problem be solved by scrapping the overage vehicles of senior citizens? Shouldn't the government first try and remove the huge Ghazipur landfill that repeatedly catches fire, or clamp down on stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana, or check the burning of crackers during Diwali? Is my 15-year-old car causing more pollution than these other sources? I believe not. So why do I have to stop using it before the government does anything about that huge landfill?
The rules in Delhi-NCR that ban 10-year-old diesel and 15-year-old petrol vehicles from plying on the roads came as an order from the National Green Tribunal, later reiterated in a Supreme Court judgement in 2018. Since then, both the Delhi Government and the Union Government have at different times, stated that they were planning to approach the Supreme Court to seek a review of the rules in Delhi-NCR, to bring them in line with the Centre's rules for phasing out old vehicles.
When the common citizen approaches the Supreme Court to argue against the Delhi-NCR rules, their pleas are swiftly turned down. I request the urgent intervention of the Union Transport Minister in this regard. For senior citizens who want to continue using their old, but fit, vehicles and avoid a heavy expense in their retired life, our last hope is that the Transport Ministry approaches the SC with a strong argument on why Delhi-NCR's ban on old vehicles should at least accommodate an exemption for senior citizens.
Considering this, I demand that all senior citizens of Delhi NCR should be allowed to retain their vehicles as registered in their own names only as on March 31, 2022 by another 5 years beyond the 15 years limit. If there may be any apprehension of misuse of this facility by the younger population in their families, the data of ownership as a senior citizen as on March 31, 2022 may be taken as a cut off for these exemptions.