Current Affairs: The Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) has issued a directive to ban the registration of diesel-powered public transport vehicles in the National Capital Region (NCR) from January 1, 2016.
Only CNG-powered public transport vehicles will be registered in Noida (Gautam Budh Nagar), Ghaziabad, and Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, and Gurgaon, Faridabad, Sonepat, Bahardurgarh, and Jhajjar districts in Haryana.
This follows in Delhi’s footsteps, where taxis, buses, autos, etc. have been ordered to run only on CNG.
Supreme Court-mandated body has ordered district authorities to stop issuing fitness certificates to diesel-run taxis and autos from January 1 and buses from June 1.
The ministry of petroleum and natural gas has been directed to come back with a plan which details how CNG will be supplied to NCR districts that do not have gas supply.
The EPCA also discussed the implementation of the Supreme Court order to impose a ban on registration of diesel vehicles with an engine capacity of over 2,000cc till March 31.
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