App-based taxi aggregator Uber on Thursday wrote to the Delhi Government as well as Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena, urging them to take an all-encompassing view based on scientific evidence, while also keeping in mind the larger humanitarian crisis the ban on app-based taxis next week can precipitate.
In the letter seen by IANS, Uber said that the Delhi-NCR region encompasses several districts surrounding Delhi from the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan which makes movement restrictions impractical and hard to execute.
The ban “would be akin to mobility lockdown for citizens of Delhi-NCR who would be left in the lurch if they need to access critical infrastructure like the airport, railway stations and even major hospitals,” the ride-hailing platform wrote in the letter.
The ‘Odd-Even vehicle’ scheme and the proposed ban on app-based taxis will come into force from November 13-20 if the Supreme Court gives a go-ahead after a review on Friday.
The review on the pollution-control methods by the top court comes in view of the fact that AQI levels in Delhi-NCR have been in the ‘severe’ category for many days.
According to the company, the cab aggregator industry is committed to supporting the citizens of Delhi-NCR in this moment of environmental and health crisis.
“We would like to bring to your attention that every single one of the 70,000 cars on the Uber platform across Delhi-NCR runs on clean fuel – CNG or electric – as opposed to private vehicles which run on petrol or diesel which are the more polluting fuels,” Uber argued.
Any shift from private vehicles to CNG or electric taxis would only abate the pollution by encouraging people to move to cleaner fuels, it said.
“An indiscriminate restriction on CNG vehicles which run on clean fuel will force people to move to petrol or diesel vehicles,” added Uber.
A recent study conducted by the Delhi Technological University found that less than two per cent of the air pollution in Delhi could be attributed to four-wheelers implying that there is a need to concentrate on other polluting factors which have a significant impact on emissions.
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