The Delhi transport department has issued an order allowing owners of out-of-age vehicles to retrieve essential documents and personal belongings before they are seized for scrapping.
The move comes in response to multiple complaints from owners who alleged that enforcement teams did not permit them to collect their items before confiscation.
"Complaints are being received in the department from the vehicle owners whose vehicles have been seized/impounded in the enforcement drive against End-of Life vehicles and unregistered or without fitness e-rickshaws that owners are not given an opportunity to recover important & valuable documents/items kept in the impounded/seized vehicle," the order from the department's scrapping cell read.
"...all the RVSFs (Registered Vehicle Scrapping Facilities) associated with the Transport Department, GNCTD are hereby directed to give at least one chance to the vehicle owners or their authorised/representatives to inspect their impounded/seized vehicles and recover their important/valuable documents and items kept in the vehicle before it is impounded/seized and handed over to the RVSF for scrapping of the vehicle," it stated.
Recently, a case also came to light in which a car was towed away by the enforcement team from a house in Keshavapuram without informing the vehicle owner. The transport department team left after pasting a notice on the wall. The vehicle owner ran from pillar to post, but neither the transport department nor the scrapping agency gave him the documents kept in the car.
In another notification, the department has made changes in the Delhi Parking and Management Rules 2019. Now the owners of impounded vehicles will have to pay double the custody charges if the vehicles are kept with the department for more than seven days.
The move comes in the wake of a shortage of space for safekeeping of such vehicles, said officials.