Delhi gears up for shift to cleaner fuel

NEWDELHI: With less than a month remaining before the national capital switches over to the cleaner Bharat Stage-vi (BS-VI) fuel to cut down on its vehicular pollution, oil marketing companies and pumping stations have already started gearing up for the change.

“Oil companies have already started supplying BS-VI fuel to the pumping stations in Delhi. Out of the 400-odd fuel stations, the switch over from BS-IV to BS-VI is complete in around 100 stations. In the rest, the graduation to cleaner fuel is being done in phases,” said Nischal Singhania, president of Delhi Petroleum Dealers Association.

BS-VI norms are scheduled to be implemented across India from April 2020. But the Union ministry of petroleum and natural gas had announced a two-year advancement of the introduction of BS-VI fuel norms in Delhi from April 1, 2018.

“The shift can’t be done overnight. So we have already started supplying BS-VI fuel to fuel pumping stations in Delhi along with BS-IV. The shift would be completed before March 31. From April 1 there won’t be any supply of BS-IV in Delhi,” said a spokesperson of Indian Oil Corporation.

Vehicles contribute nearly 9% of PM10, 20% of PM2.5, 36% of NOX and 83% of CO pollution load in Delhi as per a study conducted by IIT Kanpur in 2016.

“The sulphur content of BS-VI fuel is just 10 ppm compared to 50 ppm in BS-IV. The shift will bring down sulphur content by at least five times from the current BS-IV levels, a whopping 80 percent reduction. This will improve emissions from the existing fleet of vehicles, even from the older vehicles,” said Usman Nasim, research associate (clean air and sustainable mobility) at Centre for Science and Environment.

He, however, said that full advantage of this shift would be possible only when the vehicle technology moves to BS-VI.

Neither petroleum dealers nor company officials, however, divulged any details about the price of the BS-VI fuel. While company officials claimed that it would be declared on March 31, representatives of the petroleum dealers association apprehend that there could be some hike.

“If there is a hike for BS-VI fuel in Delhi and the BS-IV is still available in NCR areas, vehicle owners will stop purchasing BS-VI from Delhi and would instead opt for BS-IV from outside the Capital. In that case the entire shift to cleaner fuel would become futile,” said Singhania.