Can BS VI be a comprehensive solution?

Statistics show a drastic decrease in the sales of small passenger as well as freight vehicles in India, the largest fall in the decade(around 20% fewer sales than in July 2018)

Recently Bharat Stage VI norms were announced. Its purpose is to reduce pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter emitted from the outlets of vehicles. 1 April 2020 is likely to be the deadline for manufacturers to move onto new designs according to BS VI norms. However, how far the newly announced norms can provide a solution to the environmental issues we already have in India is an important question. Also, we have to think about the increasing usage of permit-expired vehicles.

Even though the companies are brainstorming to make new model vehicles which are supposed to be capable of producing around 40ppm less SO2, 70% and 25% less NOx for diesel and petrol engines respectively, and less amount of PM2.5 and PM10, the current in-use vehicles (those will account for the lion’s share of total vehicles even after the introduction of newly designed ones) emit huge amounts of these pollutants. Over and above this, the number of expired vehicles and damaged vehicles evading the laws is increasing day by day. From this, it is clear that the effectiveness of new norms will be visible not any soon.

As newly designed vehicles themselves would be much greater in cost and require clean fuel – costlier than the currently available fuel- middle-class men will find it difficult to afford new vehicles at least for the next few years by which the further updated norms will be released. Most of India’s automobile consumers fall in the middle-class band and hence the effectiveness of new norms would be further delayed. In a nutshell, new norms are required along with properly aware people, and products must be made affordable for the common man. The current GST hike, insurance premium hike etc suggest that only the upper middle class and high class may purchase cars in India. This is unfortunate.