The biggest lesson is that the odd-even scheme has led to reduction in traffic congestion. The peak levels of pollution have come down substantially. The report by the EPCA clearly enunciates how it made a great impact on the peak levels of pollution. Importantly, people are ready for radical measures to combat air pollution.

If the government comes up with a well thought-out policy decision, which may mean short-term pain for long-term gain, people will embrace it, provided they are kept at the centre of all policy formulation. Every policy decision should be put out in the public domain before it is formulated… people should be allowed to debate and discuss it, like we did with the odd-even scheme. The odd-even scheme has now paved the way for more decisions to follow.

What are the other measures being considered for controlling pollution? We have given a plan of action to the Supreme Court that lists out all the immediate measures that we have thought of. We said that we are ready to put a complete ban on registration of new private diesel vehicles provided the ban extends to the entire national capital region (NCR). People will go and get their cars registered in Noida and Gurgaon. The IIT Kanpur report says this and we also believe it… cities are built for people and not for cars. Increasingly, we will have to do road rationing, traffic management and regulate the movement of private vehicles. One idea we are working on is that the polluter pays — can we have a graded usage charge, a pollution charge that we can levy on different vehicles, depending on their emission norms? If the vehicle is BS II, there will be increased emission charges. Singapore has done it and we are studying their model. Even if the odd and even scheme is in place… then you additionally pay a certain environmental compensation charge. Another challenge is what to do about two-wheelers. Can we move over to a complete regime of only electric two-wheelers? Whatever two-wheelers exist now, they will phase out eventually. Can only electric two wheelers be allowed in the future? We don’t know yet. China has done this…we are studying it. Have other NCR states and the Centre cooperated with you? I think we have a pretty good working relationship with (Union Transport Minister Nitin) Gadkari. I believe that whatever little problems there might be as far as coordination is concerned, they will be taken care of by the Supreme Court…. The NCR has to act in unison… the governments of UP,, Haryana, Delhi and the Centre, they are the four important stakeholders. We believe that we will get the required cooperation. What changes can we expect in the odd-even scheme? The results have to be analysed and studied in the next 15 days. We believe that the odd-even scheme is an emergency measure which should coincide with winter months. Every year, the odd-even scheme can be implemented in November, December and January… Self-discipline and voluntarism is essential for this scheme.