Amid concerns over the rising air pollution, the Union government is going to notify norms soon for vehicles to shift to clean fuels under Euro V and VI emission standards.
“We are going to notify norms for Euro V and Euro VI in a day or two,” Road Transport and Highways Secretary Vijay Chibber told The Hindu . A meeting to finalise the draft notification, which was made public in November, will be held on Wednesday. The introduction of clean fuels under Euro V and VI standards will be done in phases. According to the draft notification, old vehicles will need to switch to Euro V and Euro VI norms from April 1, 2019 and April 1, 2021 respectively.
The new norms are planned to be introduced in new vehicles from 2020 and 2022.
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At present, BS-IV auto fuels are being supplied in over 30 cities, and the rest of the country has BS-III fuels.
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Earlier, the government planned the implementation of BS V and BS VI emission norms nationwide by 2020 and 2024 respectively. However, the government decided to advance the dates.
“In view of the deteriorating air quality, it is agreed to take on a more challenging task of compressing the timelines,” Minister of State Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises G.M. Siddeshwara had said in a written reply to a Lok Sabha question earlier this month.
However, the auto industry opposed the advancement of dates. “We have no objections to the implementation of BS V norms but had opposed the deadline for BS VI norms which were earlier proposed to be implemented from 2023,” said K.K. Gandhi, Executive Director (Tech), Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.
This comes at a time when the Delhi government has announced its plan to keep a check on the rising air pollution by restricting the number of vehicles that can ply in the national capital beginning January 1, 2016. Also, the Supreme Court has banned the registration of diesel cars and SUVs with 2000 CC engine capacities in the Delhi and the National Capital Region till March 31, 2016.