A news report which claims that the government lifted the ban on 10 year old diesel & 15 year old petrol vehicles in Delhi, is being widely shared. The report further claims that such old vehicles can now ply in Delhi-NCR region. Through this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Government has revoked the ban on 10-year-old diesel & 15-year-old petrol vehicles in Delhi-NCR region.
Fact: The Union Government did not revoke the ban on plying of old petrol/diesel vehicles in Delhi, which was imposed by the NGT. Restriction of plying 10-year-old diesel & 15-year-old petrol vehicles in Delhi-NCR region, is still in place. A news agency published this news based on a notification of MORTH, dealing with modalities of sale and purchase of registered vehicles. However, in this notification, there is no mention of revoking the ban on old vehicles. Following the virality of the news, MORTH has clarified stating this news is false. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Zee media on 12 February telecast this news report, claiming that Indian government has lifted ban on 10-year-old diesel & 15-year-old petrol vehicles in Delhi-NCR region. The report displayed a notification, in support of their claim.
However, the government of India did not provide any such respite with respect to the ban on 10-year-old diesel & 15-year-old petrol vehicles, which NGT had imposed earlier. The ban still is in place.
Google search with relevant keywords led us to a series of tweets from the official twitter account of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), clearing the air about the viral news. Following the virality of this news on social media, MORTH, through these tweets clarified that the ban imposed on 10-year-old diesel and 15-year-old petrol vehicles, is still in place.
Apart from this, the tweet further clarified that ‘the notification GSR 901(E) dated 22-12-2022, which is in circulation, is published by this Ministry to regulate the trading of in-use registered vehicles and is no way concerned with the ban imposed by the Hon’ble NGT.’
Taking a cue from this, we accessed the viral notification of MORTH, dated 22 December 2022. This notification explains modalities to be followed regarding the sale and purchase of registered vehicles. And there is no mention about revoking the ban on old vehicles, in this notification.
As the news of government revoking the ban went viral, several news agencies initially reported the same Many of them also reported the clarification by MoRTH (here and here).
To sum it up, the Union Government did not revoke the ban on old petrol/diesel vehicles in Delhi.
