Delhi pollution: Traffic police slap fines totalling Rs 1 crore for violations after GRAP-3 invoked

New Delhi: Delhi Traffic Police has issued around 550 challans, imposing a total fine of over Rs 1 crore, to BS III petrol and BS IV diesel vehicles on Friday on the first day of the ban on these vehicles under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) III in the national capital, officials said.

According to police, they have also issued challans to 4,855 vehicles imposing a total of Rs 4.8 crore in fines for not having Pollution Under Control Certificates (PUCC) in the national capital on Friday.

A fine of Rs 10,000 is imposed on motorists for not having a valid pollution under control (PUC) certificate. These challans get released from courts. Private BS III petrol and BS IV diesel vehicles were banned from roads with violations inviting a penalty of Rs 20,000. Diesel and petrol inter-state buses from the NCR cities to Delhi are also banned.

A senior police officer said that they have issued a total of 293 challans for BS-III and BS-IV vehicles in the eastern, central and northern ranges of the city. A total of 2,404 challans have been issued for not having PUCC certificates.

While the New Delhi range has issued 63 such challans, the western range issued 73 and the southern range issued 121 challans, the officials said.

The New Delhi, southern, and western ranges have also issued 322, 894, and 1,235 challans respectively for not having PUCC, they said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Rajiv Kumar Rawal said that they checked around 3,000 vehicles in the three ranges of the traffic police on Friday.

"We have intensified checking especially in the bordering areas and the inter-state buses are also being checked. Vehicles whose entry is prohibited are being turned back from the borders. We have returned around 300 such vehicles. We are also prosecuting the vehicles which do not have a PUCC," Rawal said.

The Delhi government has banned private BS III petrol and BS IV diesel vehicles, prohibited the entry of interstate non-electric-CNG buses, certain categories of construction activities, and staggered government office timings, as the city choked under 'severe'-category air pollution Friday morning.

The restrictions were imposed under stage III of the Graded Response Action Plan, or GRAP, announced by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) on Thursday.