Delhi must stop beating about the bush on air pollution and, instead, speedily reduce sulphur content in diesel to proactively improve environmental standards. Slapping an environmental cess on trucks entering Delhi might actually worsen pollution levels, with traffic choked at toll gates.
The Centre, in announcing last week India’s intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) for climate action, said it aims to improve fuel standards “in the near future”.
India is not obliged to set out its actual target dates in a negotiating document. Yet, as the expert committee, headed by Saumitra Chaudhuri, then member, Planning Commission, noted last year, in the business-as-usual scenario, the deadline to improve fuel quality is 2025 “or even beyond”.
The panel stressed that reducing sulphur levels in diesel is essential to reduce tailpipe emissions, particulate matter and oxides of nitrogen. The government needs to speedily improve fuel quality nationally.
As the expert panel noted, Bharat Stage-III diesel, with sulphur in the range of 350-500 particles per million (ppm) is still supplied in much of the country. BS-IV (sulphur levels at 50 ppm) is now increasingly available in the major towns, but vehicles on long-distance routes are more likely to run on BS-III fuel. The expert report emphasised that BS-IV diesel is a must for pollution abatement devices like catalytic converters to function. It added that when sulphur content reduces to 10 ppm (BS-V), the efficiency and durability of the onboard pollution control devices improve. However, to move to ultra-low sulphur fuel requires capital investment of the order of Rs 80,000 crore in oil refineries. The report called for a 75 paise sulphur cess per litre of automotive fuel to reach BS-V by 2020, and BS-VI by 2024.
The report was submitted last May, before the slide in oil prices. The government needs to address the root cause of urban air pollution and, given the far softer oil prices, levy an appropriate charge on auto fuel sales to revamp refineries.
We must in the near future move to BS-V fuel norms and not wait to do so only by 2020.
(Source: Editorial in The Economic Times dated 09-10-2015.)
