Over 14,000 commercial vehicles purchased radio frequency identification (RFID) tags near the city’s 13 border points on Sunday.
Commercial vehicles without the RFID tags, which digitised payment of municipal toll tax and environment compensation charge, were fined heavily since Saturday midnight.
The system is part of the efforts to reduce congestion at these border points and reduce air pollution.
“We have also launched more RFID tag selling counters within Delhi at airports, railway stations and bus stops, and outside Delhi in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh,” said Akash Sinha, the chief executive officer of Tecsidel, the toll operator company hired by SDMC.
The latest figure took the total number of commercial vehicles who have purchased the RFID tag to over 200,000, as opposed to Saturday evening’s 186,000, said a senior South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) official.
The SDMC is the nodal agency implementing the RFID project on behalf of all the civic bodies in the city.
It is being undertaken under directions from the Supreme Court (SC).
“From Saturday 5 pm to Sunday 5 pm, only 487 commercial vehicles entering Delhi were found to not have the RFID tag and penalised for it, as compared to the 5,749 commercial vehicles fined from Saturday midnight to 5 pm,” said Randhir Sahay, Additional Commissioner, SDMC.
“We believe the numbers came down drastically because of our new scheme whereby vehicle owners can submit their documents -- the driving license, car registration number, insurance papers and a photograph of the vehicle -- at the toll points and collect the tag later even seven days later. In the meanwhile, they can show the receipt at toll points and escape the fine,” Sahay said.
SDMC has also started online registrations at its website preregistertags@gmail.com, where vehicle owners can upload the documents and collect the processed tag later.
The Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) had declared on Friday that no more deadline extensions would be given to commercial vehicle owners who had not bought the tag.
From Saturday midnight, they would pay double the municipal toll tax and the Environment Compensation Charge (ECC), EPCA member Sunita Narain had said.
On Sunday as well, vehicle drivers and owners queued up at the city’s 13 main toll points -- Kundli, Rajokri, Tikri, Aya Nagar, Kalindi Kunj, Kapashera, Shahdara (Main), Shahdara (Flyover), Ghazipur (Main), Ghazipur (Old), DND Flyway, Badarpur-Faridabad (Main) and Badarpur-Faridabad (Flyover) -- to get the RFID tag. However, the queues were shorter as opposed to Saturday.
