Senior advocate Harish Salve, assisting the court as an amicus in environmen-related matters, said the government has failed to meet the deadline of having 10,000 buses by 2001 as fixed by the apex court. “We still have a shortfall of about 4,000 buses coupled with additional 6,000 required as per the projected figure till 2010,” he said, citing the recent EPCA report.

The bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justices Arijit Pasayat and S H Kapadia asked the counsel for the Delhi government to file an affidavit at the earliest. Salve said lack of adequate number of buses in a way pushes people to use their own vehicles even when a bus takes about 65 per cent of traffic off the road as it occupies merely 25 per cent of space on a road.

Salve said this in a way has contributed to more people buying diesel cars, finding it more economical. This has nullified the effect of converting the public transport to CNG, he said. Salve said diesel in India was available at highly subsidised rate, while everywhere in the world diesel is marginally or highly priced than petrol or other fuel.

Even the EPCA report had suggested to the Government to remove this dual-pricing policy which would go a long way in arresting the mushrooming growth of diesel-run cars in the Capital, Salve said. The Bench also asked the Union Ministry of Transport and MoEF to file their replies, furnishing their views on it.