While on the one hand the Delhi government is making tall claims on the effectiveness of the odd-even plan in curbing pollution on the other the Central Pollution Control Board has said that there is no data to suggest its impact on vehicular pollution in the national capital.
CPCB, the apex pollution monitoring body, told a National Green Tribunal bench headed by Justice Swatanter Kumar on Thursday that prima facie, there is no data to suggest that odd-even scheme has any impact on decrease in vehicular pollution and the fluctuations in air pollutants PM10 and PM2.5 are due to weather and change in wind patterns.
On being informed about this, the NGT asked the Delhi government, why 15-year-old vehicles are not being taken off the roads to contain air pollution in the capital.
Besides the legal twists and turns, politics is heating up in Delhi by the day over the odd-even plan.
The Delhi govt alleged on Thursday that incidents of fire in a forested area behind Raj Ghat and at municipal landfill sites was a conspiracy to sabotage the second phase of the odd-even scheme in a planned way.
It also raised questions on what it called were ununsual traffic jams since the rollout of the scheme in the second phase.
Away from the legal and political corridors, the common citizen in Delhi continues to be at the receiving end of the high-handedness of auto-rickshaw and taxi drivers besides braving a scorching summer.