Delhi's EV Policy Promises Clean Air. But for Whom?

Consider a delivery worker in Delhi — one of hundreds of thousands who spend eight to ten hours a day on a petrol two-wheeler. On a good day he earns ₹700. His chest tightens on the worst days, when heat sits at 42°C and the roads exhale exhaust. Two kilometres away, a CNG autorickshaw driver's engine is misfiring. From January 2027, under Delhi's Draft EV Policy 2026, only electric three-wheelers can be newly registered. A new electric auto, even after Delhi's proposed ₹50,000 Year 1 subsidy, costs significantly more than the second-hand CNG vehicles most drivers rely on.

Delhi's Draft EV Policy 2026, released last month, is the most serious electrification commitment this city has made. It bans new ICE three-wheeler registrations from January 2027 and new ICE two-wheelers from April 2028. It offers purchase incentives, scrappage bonuses, and designates Delhi Transco Limited as the nodal agency for charging infrastructure. For the first time, Delhi is moving from nudging the market toward EVs to legislating the end of petrol -- a fundamentally different commitment, and one that is overdue. 

The question it does not yet answer is whether it delivers clean air to the people who need it most.

The Health Stakes

Two-wheelers make up nearly 67% of Delhi's vehicle base. The people who ride them for a living -- delivery workers, daily commuters, informal sector workers -- are also among the city's most exposed to the pollution those vehicles produce. PM2.5 from vehicular exhaust penetrates deep into the lungs and bloodstream, causing respiratory disease, cardiovascular illness, and cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies outdoor air pollution as a Group 1 carcinogen. The delivery worker's chest tightness is not a coincidence. It is a data point.

This is not only a winter problem. Delhi's summer air is increasingly a public health emergency. Rising temperatures accelerate ground-level ozone formation, and long-term pollution exposure significantly increases vulnerability to heat stress. For outdoor workers who cannot retreat indoors, extreme heat and toxic air are a compound emergency — one the policy, focused almost entirely on winter tail-pipe emissions, does not yet address.

The Equity Gap

Scrappage bonuses — ₹10,000 for a two-wheeler, ₹25,000 for a three-wheeler — create a financial pathway for older, higher-emitting vehicles to exit the fleet. The logic is sound. But these bonuses are most useful to households that can bridge the remaining cost of an EV purchase. For the delivery worker on ₹700 a day, or the auto driver whose loan application was rejected, the gap between the scrappage bonus and a viable electric vehicle remains wide.

The policy's answer — and it is the right one — is public transport. Delhi now operates over 4,000 electric buses, with a target of 7,500 by end-2026. But buses are only useful if they reach the last mile. If households that scrap their vehicles face poor feeder connectivity and insufficient affordable charging near their homes, the clean air transition narrows to those with the means to absorb it. Accelerating bus frequency and last-mile connectivity in parallel with the ICE ban timelines is what makes this a genuinely just transition — not one that reduces emissions primarily among higher-income segments.

The Evidence Gap

Delhi's State Clean Air Action Plan has not been revised since 2018. The policy cites source-apportionment data attributing 23% of winter air pollution to vehicles — but this draws on studies conducted that year, predating the post-Covid recovery, the shift in Delhi's vehicle mix, and three years of NCAP implementation. A 2023 source apportionment study, completed by IIT Kanpur in partnership with multiple institutions, was presented to the Delhi government — but as the amicus curiae informed the National Green Tribunal in November 2025, the study remains unapproved and its findings have not been incorporated into Delhi's pollution action planning.

A new EV policy investing ₹3,954 crore deserves to be built on current evidence, not data that is now eight years old.

The Infrastructure Gap

The mathematics are stark. Delhi currently has 8,849 public charging points against a stated requirement of 36,150. Infrastructure planning targets suggest reaching just over 16,000 by end-2026 — meaningful progress, but less than half the stated requirement, for a city banning new ICE two-wheelers in April 2028. A published, time-bound grid-readiness plan explicitly tied to the mandate dates — updated annually — is the difference between a credible commitment and a target that the ban timeline may outrun.

What the Analysis Points to

Three additions would make Delhi's EV policy genuinely transformative rather than ambitious on paper.

The 2023 IIT Kanpur source apportionment study should be approved and its findings incorporated into Delhi's State Action Plan before the policy is notified — and a commitment to updating the evidence base every three years would institutionalise this standard going forward.

A published, time-bound grid-readiness assessment — explicitly benchmarked against the January 2027 and April 2028 mandate dates and updated annually — would make the infrastructure commitment credible rather than aspirational. The current gap between 8,849 charging points and a stated requirement of 36,150 is not a gap that closes without a plan.

Accelerated investment in bus frequency and last-mile connectivity, running in parallel with the ICE ban timelines, is what determines whether the transition reaches outdoor workers, delivery riders, and low-income households — or narrows to those who can absorb the upfront cost of an EV. The mandate architecture is in place. The just transition logic requires this third leg to stand.

Delhi's EV policy has the ambition to answer the right questions. Whether it delivers clean air to the people most exposed to pollution depends on the choices made before it is finalised.

Dr. Urvashi Prasad is the founding director of PAVANA -- Centre for Air Pollution and Environmental Health, and Senior Fellow at Pahle India Foundation. Dr. Jyoti Yadav and Dr. Sayoudh Roy are researchers at Pahle India Foundation.