There are 400,000 plus dilapidated vehicles in Tehran which spew poison into the air and endanger lives of the people, new data from the Majlis Civil Commission shows.
Lawmaker Majid Kianpour told Donyaye Khodro news website on Monday that the old and carbureted vehicles are responsible for over 80% of the air pollution in the sprawling capital.
The figures are significantly higher than those previously reported by the Tehran Governorate on its website (ostan-th.ir), which last year reported that 2,500 dilapidated cars built three decades ago ply the congested roads and highways of the capital every day.
Over the past three decades, Tehran has expanded in all four directions to the extent that on the northern flank high rise towers have crept into the mountains while villas for the nouveau rich have been built at the foothills and near the Alborz Mountain range.
Tehran has long been notorious for its poor air quality. Pollution and toxic air increase health risks including premature death. Data from the Ministry of Health show that during the fiscal that ended in March 2017, close to 12,798 pollution-related deaths were recorded with one-third of the fatalities in the capital.
The capital has been struggling with nerve-racking traffic jams. Tehran streets and freeways can hardly handle 750,000 vehicles. This is while every day more than four million cars ply the overcrowded roads, a former traffic deputy at Tehran Municipality, Maziar Hosseini told reporters earlier this year.
Tehran Municipality figures show that 19 million daily trips are made in the capital on any working day (and night).
Having realized that temporary and shallow solutions and more like tranquilizes unable to fix the suffocating air pollution, decision-makers have been forced to introduce new plans.
One of the proposed schemes, fruitful to some extent, has been the introduction of a Low Emission Zone (LEZ) scheme in central Tehran. The LEZ scheme, aimed at banning highly polluting vehicles from entering Tehran, was launched in 2016 and is a tad stricter than before.
In addition, a new scrappage scheme has been drawn up jointly by the Department of Environment and the Majlis Industries and Mines Commission, requiring local carmakers to phase out one clunker for every four new vehicles they sell. This plan is yet to be approved by the Majlis.
