Environmental and other implications of the supreme court verdit on the bs iv norms

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Environmental and other implications of the Supreme Court verdit on the BS-IV norms

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Bharat Stage (BS) Emission Norms

• The auto emission norms are emission standards which are adopted by the government of a nation to check the air pollutants released from any internal combustion engine equipment, including motor vehicles.

• These norms were introduced in India in 2000, when the Bharat Stage norms were adopted by the then government, based on the European emission norms. Each stage specifies a certain limit on the pollutants released, which is controlled by the type of fuel made by the oil companies and the upgradations and modifications made by the auto firms to their vehicles to control the pollutants released from the vehicle.

• India had enforced Bharat stage III norms across the country since October 2010. In 13 major cities, Bharat stage IV emission norms were put in place since April 2010.



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• Currently, BS-IV petrol and diesel are being supplied in whole of Northern India covering Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi and parts of Rajasthan and western UP. The rest of the country has BS-III grade fuel.

• From 1 April, 2016, all of Goa, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Odisha, Union Territories of Daman and Diu, Dadra-Nagar-Haveli and Andaman & Nicobar will get BS-IV fuel. The rest of the country is scheduled to get supplies of BS-IV from 1 April, 2017.

• On the other hand, China had already implemented China V norms in 2013. India also lags behind the European auto emission norms by five years.



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Contn..

• The Supreme Court of India has the sale of vehicles that do not comply with BS IV emission norms as the norms are set to become mandatory from April 1, 2017.

• To start with, the ‘BS’ in BS IV stands for ‘Bharat Stage’ which signifies the emission regulation standards set by Indian regulatory bodies. The ‘IV’ is a roman numeric representation for four (4). The higher the number gets, the stricter the Bharat Stage emission norms get which eventually means it becomes trickier (and costlier) for automakers to meet them.

• These emission standards were set by the central government to keep a check on the pollutant levels emitted by vehicles that use combustion engines. To bring them into force, the Central Pollution Control Board sets timelines and standards which have to be followed by automakers.



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Problems of application of BS IV Norms

• While the application of a stricter emission norm may sound good, especially amidst the mounting concerns over the ever-rising pollution levels in the country, there’s a lot more to it than just that.

• Firstly, it takes years for automakers to develop a new kind of an engine or to tweak around with the current ones used in their vehicles. Once the research and development is over, the task of setting up full scale production comes up. All of this comes at a cost which eventually makes the vehicle more expensive for the end customer of the product and that can be a cause of concern for automakers given how price sensitive the Indian market is.

• Automakers were supposed to make their models BS IV compliant by April 1, 2017. While some automakers have met the targets and updated their products, there is a huge stock of vehicles left to be sold into the market that are BS-III compliant and as per the latest SC decision, they won’t be able to do so.



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Contn...

• Recently, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) had told the court that the companies were holding stock of around 8.24 lakh such vehicles. These included around 96,000 commercial vehicles, over 6 lakh two-wheelers and around 40,000 three-wheelers.

• Then, there is also the requirement of cleaner fuel to run these vehicles that comply with a stricter emission regulation as it is not feasible to make internal combustion engines pollute less while using poor quality of fuel. As per a report, the Centre has spent around Rs 18,000 to 20,000 crore for producing cleaner fuel.

• To wrap it up, automakers have a huge stock that does not comply with the soon-to-be-implemented BS IV emission norm and they risk facing huge losses. Whereas, as per the Centre, automakers have been given enough time for the transition and they have done their part to provide cleaner fuel, which cost a significant amount of money to do so.



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Public health more important than auto industry’s interests• The health of the citizen is more important than the commercial interests

of the automobile industry, the Supreme Court observed and ordered a freeze on the registration and sale of BS-III fuel compliant vehicles by “any manufacturer or dealer” on and from April 1, when the next level and environmentally friendly BS-IV fuel emission standards are scheduled to kick in.

• “On and from April 1, 2017, such vehicles that are not BS-IV compliant shall not be sold in India by any manufacturer or dealer, that is to say that such vehicles, whether two-wheeler, three- wheeler, four-wheeler or commercial vehicles will not be sold,” a Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta ordered.

SUPREME COURT VERDICT ABOUT BS IV NORMS



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The court further prohibited registration of vehicles meeting BS-III standards on and from April 1. “All the vehicle registering authorities under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, are prohibited from registering such vehicles on and from April 1, 2017, that do not meet BS-IV emission standards, except on proof that such a vehicle has already been sold on or before March 31, 2017,” the court directed.The court said it would give detailed reasons for the ban in due course.‘Answer is obvious’“The seminal issue is whether the sale and registration and therefore, the commercial interests of manufacturers and dealers of such vehicles that do not meet the Bharat Stage-IV emission standards as on April 1, 2017, takes primacy over the health hazard due to increased air pollution of millions of our countrymen and women. The answer is quite obvious,” it observed.

Contn...



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Vehicle manufacturers argued that they were entitled to make BS-III vehicles till March 31. So, the sale and registration of these vehicles should not be prohibited after April 1 with the introduction of BS-IV norms. They should be given a reasonable time to dispose of their stock.

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) had submitted data on the manufacturing and sale of BS-III vehicles on a monthly basis from January 2016 and told the court that the companies were holding stock of 8.24 lakh vehicles.The Centre too had favoured the prospect of selling the existent stock of BS-III vehicles.Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar had submitted that it was done twice before when fuel emission norms were upgraded to BS-II and BS-III, respectively. However, the court agreed with the arguments of its amicus curiae, who said that allowing their sale after April 1 would be a cause for “potential health hazard” for millions of people.

Contn...



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New fuel ‘cleaner’The court had pointed out that the new fuel was “cleaner” and the oil refineries had spent about 30,000 crore since 2010 to ₹produce it.The amicus argued that though the number of the existing stock was 8.24 lakh – miniscule compared to over 19 crore BS-III vehicles already plying on the roads – the “health of the people is far, far more important than the commercial interests of the manufacturers or the loss that they are likely to suffer in respect of the so-called small number of such vehicles.”Poser to manufacturersThe court asked why manufacturers decided to sit back and not take pro-active steps despite knowing way back in 2010 that BS-IV norms would kick in by April 2017.

Contn...



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So, it was entirely at their own cost and peril that some manufacturers refused to switch over to BS-IV despite having the technology to do so.“Keeping the larger public interest in mind and the potential health hazard to millions of our country men and women due to increased air pollution, there is no justification for any of the manufacturers not shifting to the manufacture of BS-IV compliant vehicles well before April 1, 2017,” the court observed..

Contn...



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Contn...



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Supreme Court’s verdict on 29th March which reiterated the decision to ban sale of BS-III vehicles from 1st April has brought out three interesting aspects.First, the central government seems unsure about its approach to the link between vehicular emissions and air pollution. Last year, it was willing to advance India’s transition to BS-VI norms. The transition is to happen at a pace that appears to be unprecedented. It shows an extraordinary commitment to clean air even if the costs of a compressed transition phase seem rather high given India’s per capita income.Second, one must sympathize with the commercial vehicle manufacturers. The current president of Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), Vinod Dasari, is also managing director of commercial vehicle maker Ashok Leyland. As he explained in a discussion, they could not completely shift to BS-IV this financial year as the relevant fuel was not available across India.

Conclusion



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Third, the fissures in the industry came out in the open. It was best represented by the things Rajiv Bajaj, managing director of Bajaj Auto, was willing to say on record. Bajaj is unusually candid man for someone who is in business. He was willing to publicly disagree with some fellow members of SIAM and support the apex court verdict.It is not just that he willing to take a public position against some other members of the auto industry. He was even willing to take a stand critical of demonetisation and the auto industry’s public response about its impact.

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Environmental and other implications of the supreme court verdit on the bs iv norms