Delhi pollution crisis: No fuel without PUC as air quality continues to dip

Bans entry of non-Delhi private vehicles below BS-VI standards

“No PUC, No Fuel” -- that blunt message greeted motorists across Delhi on Thursday as the city, choking under dense smog, rolled out one of its most stringent enforcement drives yet to curb vehicular pollution. With the air quality index (AQI) hovering at 358, firmly in the “very poor” category, traffic police and transport department teams fanned out to city borders, toll plazas and petrol pumps, denying fuel to non-compliant vehicles and turning back non-Delhi private automobiles that failed to meet Bharat Stage VI (BS-VI) standards.

 

With winter tightening its grip, commuters crawled through fog-bound roads linking Delhi with Gurugram, Noida and Ghaziabad, even as authorities leaned heavily on enforcement, signalling a shift from advisory to action against a grip atmospheric backdrop.

 

Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav acknowledged that despite incremental improvements, the crisis remained unresolved. Speaking at an event, he said that while the number of days with an AQI below 200 had increased after the establishment of the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), “this is not satisfactory”. Nearly 40 per cent of Delhi’s PM2.5 pollution, he noted, comes from vehicles. “Cities across the world that reduced pollution improved fuel quality. We moved from BS-IV to BS-VI. Old vehicles should have been phased out,” Yadav said, adding that the government would “work harder and do better”, with tangible results expected over the next four years.

 

On the ground, the message translated into queues and confrontations. At petrol pumps in central Delhi and along border stretches, officials manually checked pollution-under control (PUC) certificates and vehicle details, supported by traffic police personnel. Vehicles without valid documents were refused fuel, prompting hurried phone calls and appeals for leniency. “The rule is justified, but it’s difficult when people depend on vehicles bought with their hard-earned money,” said Mukesh Kumar, a motorist at a Janpath fuel station. Others backed the move, arguing that drastic steps were unavoidable.

 

Enforcement was visibly heavy. At the Delhi-Noida border, transport officials used electronic devices to verify BS-VI compliance. “The number of non-compliant vehicles is low today due to awareness,” said sub-inspector Jitendra Kumar, adding that fines worth around ~10,000 had been imposed since morning. At other locations, checks were entirely manual due to the absence of cameras or incomplete integration with vehicle databases.

 

The impact was immediate -- fewer vehicles on the roads and a noticeable dip in footfall at petrol pumps. “The situation is peaceful, but customers are fewer,” said Nischal Singhania, president of the Delhi Petrol Dealers’ Association, urging authorities to implement the rule uniformly across the National Capital Region (NCR) to prevent motorists from refuelling in neighbouring states. Some pump owners, however, questioned the sustainability of such manpower-intensive enforcement, pointing to gaps in automatic number plate recognition systems.

 

Delhi Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa, inspecting petrol pumps at the Gurugram border, said joint teams had been deployed to ensure strict compliance and appealed to residents to obtain PUC certificates immediately.

 

The drive forms part of a broader tightening under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP). Official data underline the scale of enforcement: Action against vehicles without valid PUC certificates has more than  trebled  in three years, rising from 232,000 challans in 2023 to 822,000 in 2025 until December 15. Nearly 157,000 of these, each carrying a ~10,000 fine, were issued during this year’s GRAP period alone. Stage IV of GRAP is currently in force across the region.

 

City border monitoring has intensified as well. During the GRAP phase, enforcement teams checked 290,000 non-destined goods vehicles, turning back 8,682, showed official data. Following CAQM directions banning diesel commercial vehicles of BS-III and below between November 1 and December 15, 3,393 such vehicles were denied entry, while hundreds more were fined within the city. The impounding of over-age vehicles has surged too, with nearly 19,500 seized in 2025 so far.

 

Health experts say the stakes could hardly be higher. A recent five-year study found that Delhi residents inhale particulate matter at levels up to 10 times India’s safety standards and nearly 40 times World Health Organization guidelines, with pedestrians and commuters facing the greatest risk. Men in Delhi are absorbing more of the city's polluted air into their lungs than women, said the study that analysed data from 39 air quality monitoring stations across Delhi between 2019 and 2023.