The vehicles coming from Jaipur and Gurgaon were stopped at Srihall toll plaza, Rajeev Chowk and the bordering area of Delhi at 12 am to pay environment tax.
As a result of this traffic congestion, commuters in the Millennium City were left stranded and had a harrowing time in reaching their destinations. The congestion began to gear up at around 12:30 am when some drivers protested against the environment tax collection drive of the Delhi Municipal Corporation while some didn’t have enough money to pay the same.
Senior traffic officials from Gurgaon and Delhi reached the spot to chalk out alternative arrangements to divert vehicles, especially efforts were made to divert traffic from Bilaspur to other routes and similar arrangements for Rewari and Alwar districts were made too.
The Supreme Court recently imposed an ‘Environment Compensation Charge’ (ECC) on commercial vehicles entering Delhi, in addition to the toll tax, from November for four months on a trial basis, in a bid to check high pollution levels in the city.
As per the ECC, light duty vehicles and two-axle vehicles have to pay a sum of Rs 700 while three-axle and above vehicles have to shell out Rs 1,300.
To protest against the Delhi civic bodies, the commuters started to park on the Delhi-Jaipur NH8 highway leading to further chaos on the road. However, most of the drivers claimed that they were not aware of the new guidelines by the Apex Court and failed to pay the tax, Manveer Singh, DCP, Gurgaon Traffic Police said.