As per the NGT order, which had suggested hiking parking rates and a congestion tax to dissuade the usage of personal vehicles, the Traffic Police will decongest Lajpat Nagar on the Veer Savarkar Road and the adjacent Feroz Gandhi Marg from Tuesday.

The Traffic Police advised vehicles headed to the market to park in parking area failing which these would be towed away. Similar drives would follow at Connaught Place, South Extension and Ajmal Khan Road later this week.

Dedicated drives against vehicular congestion in and around popular city markets — seemingly the first step towards the enforcement of the NGT’s 14-point order, which was announced in late November — will now be conducted by the Delhi Traffic Police in a phased manner on a daily basis as opposed to penal action only over the weekend as had been the practice till now.

“Unauthorised and haphazard parking in and around market places has been observed to lead to congestion, which leads to queues of vehicles waiting for their right stranded with their engines running and thus contributing to air pollution,” said a senior police officer.

“The spill over of these vehicles causes similar jams on adjacent arterial routes and has the same potentially damaging effect on the environment for which double-parked vehicles are to blame,” the officer added.

A police source said the step also aimed at cajoling Delhiites towards the usage of public transport and legal parking lots, which are available at many prominent market places in the Capital.

“Many of these legal parking lots are located further from the main market. When visitors realise this, we hope they will refrain from using private vehicles when shopping and will take to public transport,” the officer said.

The remaining, according to the source, were expected to get used to legally regulated parking lots at which, in time, a congestion tax could be imposed by the government to decongest Delhi, which would eventually benefit the environment.