Delhi to impound old vehicles at fuel stations starting July 1: CAQM

End-of-life vehicles detected at fuel stations or found parked at public places will be impounded and a penalty of ₹10,000 imposed on four-wheeler owners and ₹5,000 on two-wheeler owners starting July 1, officials said on Friday.

EOL vehicles are diesel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol vehicles older than 15 years. Irrespective of the states they are registered in, they will not be given fuel in Delhi starting July 1, according to directions issued by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) earlier.

Around 500 fuel stations in Delhi have installed Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras to detect EOL vehicles.


"When a vehicle enters a fuel station, a special (ANPR) camera will read its number plate. This number will be instantly checked with the central VAHAN database, which will show details like the vehicle's age, fuel type and registration. If the vehicle is found to be EOL, it will be flagged as an EOL vehicle. The system will alert the fuel station staff not to refuel it. The violation will be recorded and sent to enforcement agencies, who may then take action, such as impounding and scrapping the vehicle," Virendra Sharma, Member (Technical), CAQM, said.

Delhi Transport Commissioner Niharika Rai said any EOL vehicle detected at the fuel stations will be impounded on the spot.

To discourage their use, penalties have been set for owners of impounded vehicles. Four-wheeler owners will be fined ₹10,000, while those who own two-wheelers will have to pay ₹5,000, along with towing and parking charges, the CAQM said.

Also, the owners must submit an undertaking stating that the vehicles will not be used or parked at any public place and will be removed from Delhi's jurisdiction, it said.

Enforcement agencies will carry out regular drives to remove EOL vehicles from public places in Delhi and send daily reports to the environment department for submission to the CAQM, Sharma said.

If an EOL vehicle is found on the road or parked in a public area, it will be seized and a seizure memo issued. All such impounded vehicles will be sent to a registered vehicle scrapping facility (RVSF). If the owner wants to move the vehicle out of Delhi, he must get a no-objection certificate (NOC) within a year of the vehicle's expiry date, officials said.

Rai said the fuel stations violating the directions during the trial run of the ANPR system have been identified.

"We will deploy a team comprising transport and traffic police officials at each of these fuel stations. They will ensure that there is no law-and-order problem while implementing the system," the official said.

The mechanism will be rolled out in five high-vehicle-density districts adjoining Delhi -- Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar and Sonipat -- from November 1, with the installation of ANPR cameras to be completed by October 31.

The remaining NCR districts have been given time till March 31, 2026, to install the cameras, with fuel denial for EOL vehicles starting April 1, 2026.

Officials also said the CAQM will soon issue an order to implement the mechanism at Delhi's 156 entry points for EOL vehicles as well as for buses and other heavy goods vehicles.

Sharma said around 100 enforcement teams comprising officials from the traffic and transport departments have been set up.

Strict action will be taken against the fuel stations found flouting the directions under relevant legal provisions, he said.

The CAQM shared that there are 6.2 million EOL vehicles in Delhi, of which 4.1 million are two-wheelers. The total number of EOL vehicles in the other National Capital Region (NCR) districts is around 4.4 million, and these are largely concentrated in the five high-density cities.

The directions come amid poor progress in removing old, polluting vehicles from the NCR despite previous orders from the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal.

Assistant Regional Transport Officer (Enforcement), Gautam Budh Nagar, Udit Narayan Pandey, said, "The CAQM has issued an important order to promote pollution control and clean air, under which from November 1, 15-year-old petrol vehicles and 10-year-old diesel vehicles will not be provided fuel at petrol pumps in Gautam Budh Nagar and Ghaziabad."

He added that the rule will apply to 0.208 million vehicles registered in Gautam Budh Nagar.

Pandey appealed to the owners of EOL vehicles to scrap the vehicles and opt for alternative arrangements, such as buying environment-friendly electric vehicles or using public transport.