In contrast to the Delhi government's ready acceptance to comply with the Supreme Court's suggestion to phase out its old diesel fleet to cut air pollution in the National Capital, the Centre remained non-committal on Thursday while blaming the common man's reluctance to dump diesel for CNG fuel.

Replying to a Bench led by Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur, Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar said 104 additional CNG stations will be in place in the Capital and NCR regions by March 31, 2016. But then Mr. Kumar pointed out that already 32 percent of total CNG stock in the Capital are not utilised by the public.

“People are not really coming to CNG... there is even a discount of Rs. 1.50 during off-beat hours,” the top government law officer said. Amicus curiae and senior Harish Salve countered that the lack of interest may be due to the increased VAT charged, making diesel cheaper than CNG. The apex court had asked the government to increase the availability of CNG pursuant to its order on December 16, 2015 to convert NCR taxis from diesel to CNG.

The court is looking at various measures to solve roadblocks to augment and implement a more effective and accessible public transport system in Delhi and the outskirts.

One of the problems which had come up for debate was the lack of parking space, preventing compliance of a July 27, 1998 order passed by the Supreme Court to increase the public bus fleet to 10,000 by April 1, 2001.

In the hearing, Mr. Kumar said there were seven parcels of land available for parking DTC buses. Three of them have been handed over, while three are in litigation and the Delhi government has reservations about the location of the seventh one.

However, he pointed out that the demand for more land is on when the Delhi Transport department is not able to utilise their existing parking space.

“Each bus takes 70 sqmetre space, so 57 buses can be parked in an acre and 285 buses can be parked in five acres. However, only 100 buses are parked in a space which can hold 285,” Mr. Kumar submitted. The court has asked Environment Pollution Control Authority, a body mandated by the apex court, to look into the issue.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kumar, on behalf of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, told the Bench that increasing the frequency of trains to accommodate more passengers would lead to heavy capital investments. Instead, the DMRC has suggested increasing the number of coaches per train. “The total number of coaches now is 1282. 420 more will be introduced into the existing lines by December 2016. With the completion of 110 km of Phase III line by December 2017, another 486 coaches will be put to work,” the Solicitor-General submitted.

The Centre further informed the court that the production of BS VI stage fuel has been advanced from 2023 to April 1, 2020. This submission saw senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, appearing for some luxury car manufacturers, submit that if clean fuel was made available they would be ready for the transition.

“The transition from BS IV fuel to BS VI stage involves huge capital expenditure to the tune of Rs. 28,750 crore,” Mr. Kumar said. The court however referred the matter to the EPCA to probe the possibility of a further advancement of the deadline to implement BS VI.