What would be status of roads after 10k new buses: NGT

The Delhi government's proposal to deploy 10,000 new DTC buses on the congested roads of the capital today came under criticism from the National Green Tribunal which questioned the rationale behind the idea.
"Delhi is adding 1,000 cars everyday. It takes 1 hour to travel 10 kms today. If you introduce buses simultaneously what would be the status of roads. Will you be able to move an inch. Have you thought about this? Encourage public transport but what is your scheme on this?," a bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said.
The observation came after the city government told the green panel that Delhi has one of the highest road density (km of road per sq km of land area) in the world at 21.19 km of road per sq km of area while the total road length was around 30,000 km.

"The number of buses in Delhi is much less than cities like Sao Paulo, Paris, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai and London when we take road density into account," the Delhi government said.
With regard to age of all vehicles to be permitted to run in Delhi, the government said that this falls under the Motor Vehicles Act and and it is for the Centre to decide and in case it is amended "we have no problem, we are okay with it".
"What do you mean that we are okay with it?. We want your opinion on this. What sort of answer is this that if Centre does it we have no problem. What is the role of state governance? What does state welfare mean?

"Why do you expect every court to pass order for any work to get it done. When we pass orders we are accused of judicial activism. For the last two months you have not given clear answers. You say if law is amended we will follow. We are trying to find out ways and means to curb pollution," the bench said.
The Delhi government also rejected the idea to have variable office hours for the government and the private sector so as to minimise vehicular traffic saying it was not feasible.
On the issue of introduction of hybrid vehicles to reduce pollution, the city government said that they were already providing subsidy to e-rickshaws which varied from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.50 lakhs but as of now there was no proposal regarding plying of electric buses as public service vehicles.