Pollution watchdog wants no sale of BS-III vehicles

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court-appointed pollution control watchdog EPCA threw a surprise on Wednesday suggesting that vehicle manufacturers should stop selling vehicles that are BS-III compliant from next April.
However, both automobile manufacturers and government don't favour such change in the policy, which they claimed would cause chaos.
Sources said Sunita Narain of Environment Protection Control Authority (EPCA) made the suggestion during a meeting held to assess the preparedness for countrywide roll out of BS-IV and BS-VI emission norms.
As per the road transport ministry's notification, from April no manufacturer will be allowed to produce vehicles that don't meet BS-IV emission norms. It doesn't mention that already manufactured vehicles cannot be sold.
A representative of the apex body of automobile manufacturers, SIAM, said they will meet the requirement as notified by the road transport ministry. "Automobile manufacturers said some of the companies have already manufactured vehicles.
They will incur huge loss if there is sudden change in the policy. As such in cities like Delhi no BS-III vehicle is sold as these cannot be registered," said a source, who participated in the meeting.
Multiple government officials also told TOI that they won't change the stated policy, which will be inconsistent. "We all are concerned about deteriorating air quality due to pollution and hence the time line for BS-VI roll out has been compressed. But changing the policy at the drop of a hat is not the right approach," said an official.
However, manufacturers are open to the idea of considering options to expedite the process of migrating from production of BS-III vehicles to BV-IV and they will discuss it among themselves before submitting their view.