The central government has finally cleared the air on upgrading to higher emission norms. The ministry of Road Transport and Highways has said that it won’t jump to BS VI from the current BS IV emission norm.
Previously, the government was planning to upgrade directly to BS VI emission norm. However, the auto industry protested as it meant incurring additional costs and technical issues. According to the original timeline of the Auto Fuel Policy, BS IV is to be adopted across the country by 2017, BS V by 2020 and BS VI by 2024. Upgrading to BS V, which is equivalent Euro V, will attract an investment of over Rs 50,000 crore. In case of BS VI, it entails technology upgrades, other than monetary investment.
"BS-V will be implemented by 2019 while BS-VI will come into force by 2023," said Vijay Chhiber, Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways.
Other than auto manufacturers, SIAM, the apex automotive body of India has been pushing not to skip the emission norms. We really appreciate the government’s effort to make our environment cleaner and safer. However, there are times where decisions like skipping an emission norm should be given serious thought as implementing it in a country, which is one of the largest automotive markets in the world could come with its own set of problems.
