NEW DELHI: The Delhi government today conceded that it has not been able to find a solution to the problem of cars going to pick up children after school hours during the odd-even scheme, which it said will be a regular feature if the second round turns out to be successful.
Speaking at public events in preparation for the fortnight-long road rationing scheme beginning Friday, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal suggested that parents should practice car pooling to avoid problems with the authorities.
In the second round, cars with children in school uniform are exempted from the odd-even scheme. But parents have raised apprehensions over the fate of cars going to pick up children.
"We gave it a lot of thought but no solution could be found. It will cause some problems but vehicles could be shared with neighbours.
"The Second phase of odd-even scheme is very important as its first phase was just an experiment. If the second phase is successful, we are mulling implementing it for 15 days every month," he said during an interaction with students in Sarvodaya Balika Vidyala here, Kejriwal.
Transport Minister Gopal Rai advised students to take help of 'PoochhO Carpool' app launched by the government. Kejriwal said the work of civil defence personnel will be to do 'gandhigiri' while inspectors of transport department challan violators.
"The number of inspectors is only 500 while we have 5,000 civil defence personnel which means less challans and more Gandhigiri.
"While announcing the first phase of odd-even, we did not know whether the scheme would be successful and now I believe that its second phase will be successful and we will celebrate it after wrapping up the scheme," he said.
During the first phase of odd-even, out of 20-25 lakhs of cars, there were only 200-250 violations which was nothing. As the people of Delhi supported us, we did not need to challan.
Kejriwal said for the last three months, people have been demanding implementation of odd-even once again. Although the experiment of odd-even scheme failed in the entire world, people of Delhi have made it successful due to which world is praising the people of Delhi, he said.
"I give credit for the success of odd-even to two things. One month before the first phase of odd-even scheme, we had held consultations with the people of Delhi through letters, radio, newspapers and television. The second credit goes to civil defence volunteers who gave rose to violators with folded hands to follow the scheme," he said.
Kejriwal said they did not have any intention to prosecute people during first phase of the scheme but to persuade people to follow the scheme.
Those who had opposed it then and criticised the government now wanted return of the scheme, he claimed.
Kejriwal said the implementation scheme in January did not reduce pollution "as much as expected" but it significantly helped reduce traffic congestion.
"Odd even did reduce pollution but not as much as expected. However, it significantly reduced traffic congestion, the roads were clear and people liked it very much," he said.