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The Delhi government is expected to implement a long-awaited plan to stop selling fuel to end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) within the next two weeks, in a major step towards controlling vehicular pollution in the national capital.
According to officials, nearly all of Delhi’s 500 fuel stations have been equipped with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras—an essential system for launching the scheme. As of now, only 15 fuel stations are left to complete the installation.
The initiative, announced earlier this year, will prevent vehicles that have outlived their legal road life from refueling. The aim is to eliminate these older, polluting vehicles from the roads and reduce emissions.
“We have completed ANPR installation at around 485 fuel stations, including CNG pumps. Only 15 stations are left. Once this is done, the plan will be rolled out,” a Delhi government official confirmed.
The implementation is also pending final approval from the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), which oversees pollution control across the National Capital Region. Initially, the scheme was supposed to start on April 1, but it got delayed due to the incomplete setup of monitoring infrastructure.
How It Works
Under the new system, CCTV cameras with ANPR technology will scan the number plates of all vehicles entering a fuel station. The data will then be matched with the mParivahan database to identify ELVs. If a vehicle is flagged as an ELV, fuel station operators will be alerted and instructed not to provide fuel.
This rule will apply to all vehicles, regardless of their state of registration, if they enter a fuel station within Delhi.
As per the National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) order in 2015 and a later Supreme Court ruling in 2018, petrol vehicles older than 15 years and diesel vehicles older than 10 years are banned from running in Delhi. These vehicles are categorized as end-of-life vehicles, and driving them in the city is illegal.
Pollution Control Push
The policy is part of a broader campaign to curb air pollution by targeting older vehicles that fail to meet modern emission standards. “This move ensures that such outdated vehicles can no longer operate freely by simply stopping them from buying fuel,” the official added.
Records from the transport department show that Delhi had over 6 million ELVs as of September 2024. While many of these have been removed from the roads, thousands are still illegally operating, contributing heavily to Delhi’s poor air quality.
In 2023, authorities impounded 22,397 such vehicles, and in the first nine months of 2024, another 2,310 were seized. From 2024 to 2025, over 20,000 ELVs were impounded for scrapping. However, Delhi still lacks a dedicated vehicle scrapping facility, and there’s no clear data on how many of these were actually dismantled.
In early April, the Delhi government formally approached the CAQM for final clearance to enforce the rule. The enforcement will begin once all cameras are in place and the approval is received.
Environmental policy experts have advised the government to run a strong awareness campaign about the scheme. They stressed the need to clearly define legal exemptions, such as for vintage vehicles or those with special permits, to avoid confusion.
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