By Onkareshwar Pandey*
Delhi Vehicle Restrictions Deepen Middle-Class Anxiety
New Delhi: As the first day of January 2026 dawns cold and hazy over Delhi-NCR, the familiar sting of winter smog returns—not just in the lungs of millions, but in the growing frustration of ordinary car owners caught in the crossfire of anti-pollution enforcement. For the middle-class families who scrimped and saved to buy a vehicle, often their most valuable asset after their home, the new year brings not hope for cleaner air but anxiety over whether their car will still be roadworthy tomorrow.
At petrol pumps across the city, drivers clutching expired Pollution Under Control certificates are turned away, forced to hunt for testing centres or risk running dry. Out-of-state cars that don’t meet the stringent Bharat Stage-VI standard—many of them perfectly functional—are barred at entry points, stranding commuters and small traders alike. Automatic number-plate recognition cameras scan relentlessly, flagging older vehicles for fines or impoundment. What was once a symbol of hard-earned mobility now feels like a liability, with every journey shadowed by the threat of sudden, costly disruption.
According to official estimates from the Delhi Transport Department and the Commission for Air Quality Management, the capital alone has around 62 lakh end-of-life vehicles as of March 2025—approximately 41 lakh two-wheelers and 18 lakh four-wheelers—many still in good running condition but now facing phased restrictions. Since automated screening systems were deployed at 498 fuel stations and key checkpoints, over 3.63 crore vehicles have been scanned, flagging nearly 4.9 lakh suspected violators. During the trial phase from December 2024 to June 2025 alone, 44,000 vehicles were impounded, and continued enforcement since July 1, 2025, has maintained this pressure. Out-of-state restrictions under the current Graded Response Action Plan Stage IV are estimated to impact 1 to 1.2 million daily vehicle entries, while the broader pool of older models across Delhi leaves roughly 6 million owners potentially affected. For families averaging three to four members per car, that’s a disruption that could ripple through 18 to 24 million lives—missed work shifts, strained school commutes, skipped medical visits—all because one essential lifeline is increasingly at risk.
The sense of betrayal runs deep for those who trusted the system. They invested in Bharat Stage-IV and V cars—widely marketed as significant steps toward cleaner air—only to see them later restricted, with owners alone bearing fines, fuel denial, or seizures. This policy effectively shortens usable lifespans from the 20-25 years vehicles once reliably served to a rigid 10 years for diesel and 15 years for petrol models, a shift critics describe as planned obsolescence that has helped drive record new registrations of over 8.2 lakh vehicles in 2025, mostly petrol private cars.
Globally, this approach stands out. In the United States and much of Europe, vehicles two or three decades old can remain legal if they pass annual emissions and safety evaluations, with average fleet ages reaching 12-13 years. Singapore and Germany even protect automotive heritage through vintage or classic designations. India’s stricter age-based thresholds, applied without equivalent flexibility, have sparked debates over transparency, fairness, equality under Article 14 of the Constitution, and respect for personal property.
The data on pollution sources adds complexity to the picture. According to 2025 analyses from the Centre for Science and Environment and the Decision Support System for Air Quality, vehicles account for 46-51 percent of Delhi’s local PM2.5 emissions—a substantial share—balanced against road and construction dust at 12-42 percent for PM10 (often higher seasonally), industrial emissions at 3-41 percent (depending on source apportionment study and season), and household sources at 11 percent. Stubble burning contributed a negligible 0.2 per cent in December 2025. Yet in July 2025, nearly 78-79 per cent of non-urban coal plants received exemptions or deferrals from mandatory flue-gas desulfurization requirements, illustrating uneven enforcement across sectors.
Financially, the strain is undeniable. A well-maintained older car now often scraps for just 5-10 per cent of its original value. Electric alternatives carry premiums of 30-50 per cent over comparable petrol models, and with the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles Phase II scheme phased out by 2024 and the new PM E-DRIVE incentives significantly lower, the transition remains challenging for many households. The absence of a mandatory buyback or comprehensive exchange program compounds the loss, while 27-40 per cent of National Clean Air Programme funds—₹3,616 crore out of ₹11,211 crore released since 2019—have gone unspent year after year.
This isn’t denying the urgency of cleaner air—Delhi’s winter pollution remains a serious public health crisis demanding action on all fronts. But when enforcement weighs so heavily on individual car owners while other major sources receive comparatively lighter scrutiny, it risks turning potential allies into frustrated citizens. Real progress calls for balance: transparent fitness and emissions testing over rigid age limits, shared accountability including manufacturers, equal rigour on dust suppression and industrial compliance, and meaningful support for electric adoption that doesn’t leave middle-class families behind.
Only through fair, evidence-based measures across the board can the capital hope to clear its skies without deepening divisions among the very people breathing the air.
*Senior journalist
