The Most Guilty Fuel

The Government

• Working on a scrappage policy, an end-of-life policy for diesel cars

• Opposed to NGT proposals on banning 10- & 15-year old diesel cars, says it is against the Motor Vehicles Act; leapfrogging to BS6 level fuel norms to reduce emissions

The Companies

• Companies and experts feel diesel is unfairly trea­ted as the biggest pollutant

• The ban on 2,000 cc-plus diesel cars in NCR is taking its toll on car makers

• Toyota, badly hit by the ban, is rethinking on a future diesel model for India

• Mercedes and Toyota to introduce petrol versions

The Consumers

• Bewildered consumers are shying away from diesel purchases, big or small

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Are we moving towards a ­‘diesel-mukt’ Bharat? It would appear so, given the heat and dust around the fuel in recent times. The Nat­ional Green Tribunal (NGT) has come out with a fresh proposal to scrap 15-year-old diesel cars in Delhi-NCR; the government has stepped forward saying NGT’s proposal is und­oable; companies like Mercedes Benz have decided to change their product mix; Toyota has said the death knell has been struck and some others have postponed proposed car launches.

No wonder the demand for diesel cars has fallen in the last six months, forcing many companies to rethink their future models. Mercedes has even filed a plea in the Supreme Court. Tata Motors has app­roached the NGT. Given all the action, the union government has stated that banning diesel vehicles beyond 10 or 15 years would go against the Motor Vehicles Act. “It will be difficult to defend any such action where a car is banned after 10 years, without any clarity on whether there will be a refund, considering that the owners have paid road tax for 15 years.” a senior official said on condition of anonymity.

Many feel diesel is being unfairly targeted. Is that so? Diesel has many advantages, a big one being 20-25 per cent better fuel efficiency than petrol. It also has a low carbon dioxide (CO2) emission rate. And, of course, it is still the cheaper fuel. Yet, despite its more favourable pollution and emission qualities, diesel is always targeted when the authorities work on emission and pollution control.

In the influential world of environment activism, diesel has become a villain and victimised in the name of cleaning air pollution. This is despite the fact that studies have repeatedly showed diesel is not the only pollutant, nor the biggest or the main pollutant of the country’s air.

• In 2011, a study by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute and the Indian Clean Air Programme stated that the entire transport sector contributed just seven per cent of particulate matter in Delhi.

• In 2015, the Delhi government commissioned a study by IIT Kanpur, which stated that vehicles contribute to PM 2.5 (particulate matter) emission, which comes from burning of fuel. The transport sector’s share, according to the study, was 20 per cent. The share of cars in this emission was just two per cent.

• More recently, calculations by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the holding body of all vehicle manufacturers, showed that only 1.5 per cent of Delhi’s entire pollution comes from diesel cars. And this includes cars of all vintage. The share of BS4 or newer cars is just 0.5 per cent. The share of vehicles above 2,000 cc would be even lesser.

Why is diesel picked on whenever any action has to be taken to control air pollution? Experts say there is no real difference in the polluting capacities of petrol and diesel. Only the pollutants vary. While petrol emits hydrocarbons like CO2 and carbon monoxide, for diesel, it is particulate matter. If one has good technology to handle emission, the results would not be very different between petrol and diesel. “From a CO2 standpoint, diesel is a much better fuel, but no one talks about that. It has just become a fashionable flogging horse,” says Hormazd Sorabjee, editor, Autocar India.

India made a resolve in the COP 21 summit to limit CO2, but there has been no move from the Environment Pollution Control Authority or the government to control petrol vehicles that also emit CO2.

Obviously, companies that have invested heavily in diesel technology will be aff­ected by the NGT’s move, especially the SC ban on the sale of 2,000-cc-plus vehicles in Delhi-NCR. “The automobile industry has to make long-term plans, which have to be in sync with the government’s plans. We made our inv­estment in diesel engine plants over two years ago. These plants cannot be transplanted elsewhere and it’s affecting us badly. This will put a questionmark on fut­ure product plans in India,” says Shekhar Vishwanathan, vice chairman, Toyota Kirloskar Motors. The company has inv­ested Rs 1,200 crore in its diesel engine plant in India.

The fate is the same for other companies like Honda, which has also invested significantly in diesel technology. “Are we really solving the problem by taking diesel out of the equation?” asks Jnaneshwar Sen, senior VP marketing and sales, Honda Motors India. “The IIT Kanpur study shows that diesel is fairly low down in the pecking order of pollution. Then why is it being targeted? We have made a big investment in the diesel plant. In the short term, not only the investment but also operations and forecast for production will be affected.”

As expected, companies are feeling cheated that the NGT and the SC have suddenly come up with orders against diesel vehicles without giving them time to react. “Companies have invested in the country based on the country’s policy and if these policies are upt­urned suddenly without a roadmap, then it is a violation of a contractual obligation,” says Vishnu Mathur, DG, SIAM. “The surprising part is that all this is being done for just 0.5 per cent of the pollution.”

 The other important thing that always gets overlooked is the quality of fuel in India. At present, India uses a grade of fuel that is much below the standards used in Europe or the US. Of course, India has taken steps in fuel upgradation, which began in 2000 when the BS1 grade fuel was introduced. Since then, the Indian government has introduced better fuels and moved to BS4. But the oil and gas ind­ustry has been starved of funds and any move beyond that has not happened. It is only now that the government is talking of improving fuel and has laid down a roadmap to leapfrog to the BS6 level. “The cleanest diesel technology cannot run in India as the fuel here is not clean enough,” says Hormazd.

There are other reasons why diesel vehicles perform badly in India. Auto enthusiast Veeresh Malik says, “While the quality of diesel fuel in India is suspect, the way our road construction and maintenance is done, even the best of engines will end up polluting more than normal because they are operated on low gears thanks to congestion. Maintenance of diesel vehicles, esp­ecially in the small commercial vehicle sector, is abysmal.”

While, in principle, what NGT and the Supreme Court are doing is right, the way they are doing it is wrong because nowhere in the world is there a policy based on the age of cars. They are talking in terms of an annual fitness test and end-of-life policy for vehicles, especially for diesel veh­icles. That would be one solution. The more important thing would be to change the mindset that diesel is the main reason for India’s and Delhi’s air pollution.