As governance formally surrendered the administration of Delhi to chaos on All Fools' Day, April 1, 2001, the fate of its citizens' health and public transport continued to hang in balance. Ministers and politicians had a field day blaming each other for the chaos and rioting that broke out on April 3. Public transport came to a grinding halt following the March 31 deadline to move all public transport to compressed natural gas (cng). On March 26, the Supreme Court refused to extend the deadline set over two years ago. It was clear that the city was not going to meet the deadline, although the first order to this effect from the court had come on July 28, 1998, in response to a public interest petition on air pollution in Delhi. The court did give a concession to those who had placed orders for their vehicles to be converted to cng or had placed orders to buy new cng vehicles. They could ply their vehicles till September 30, 2001 (see box: Key points of the March 26 ruling). Reports in the media pointed out that the Delhi government believes that it is logistically impossible to meet this deadline.

The Union government and the state government, along with their agencies, have done their very best to ensure that the Supreme Court order on cng isn't implemented. They first created the public transport crisis in Delhi and are now using it as an excuse to shield their incompetence