Vehicle Pollution Offences Double Between 2019 and 2023 in Delhi

In 2023 alone, authorities in India's National Capital Region issued 166,301 fines to motorists whose vehicles did not have a valid pollution certificate. As data from the Delhi Road Crash Report 2023 released by the Delhi Traffic Police shows, this figure has doubled over the past five years. For 2024, this figure could go well past the 200,000 mark as preliminary statistics suggest.

An article by the New Indian Express released in May 2024 outlined that in the first four months of the year, the number of fines in this category reached 101,164 already, almost as many as for the whole year 2021. Despite fines of 1,000 to 5,000 Indian rupees for first-time offenders, as many as one third of all active vehicles in Delhi lack a valid Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificate, as government data cited by The Economic Times suggests.

As Delhi's air quality rating dropped from Very Poor to Severe in several districts in the past few days, authorities reported issuing 54,000 fines to motorists in the last two weeks of October alone, according to The Times of India. This sudden jump can also be attributed to increased traffic patrol activity tied to the so-called GRAP, short for Graded Response Action Plan, executed every winter in the Delhi National Capital Region to combat air pollution. Rising emission levels put the capital city of New Delhi first among all capital cities analyzed by air purification equipment manufacturer IQAir in its World Air Quality Report 2023.