Euro-vi petrol and diesel in Delhi pumps from today

NEWDELHI: Cleaner Euro-vi petrol and diesel, at no extra price, will be supplied in the national capital from Sunday in a bid to clear up the foul air of the city.

State-owned oil firms will start supplying the BS-VI petrol and diesel (equivalent to fuel meeting Euro-vi emission norm) at all their 391 petrol pumps in the city from Sunday, said Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) director (refineries) BV Rama Gopal.

Delhi will be the first city in the country to migrate from Euro-iv grade petrol and diesel to Euro-vi. Other cities in the National Capital Region like Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon and Faridabad as well as 13 major cities, including Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune will switch over to Euro-vi grade fuel from January 1 next year. The rest of the country will follow suit from April 2020.

While the oil companies have invested heavily to produce cleaner fuel, the consumers are not being passed on any of the cost for the time being, he said. “Rest assured, we don’t have plans of passing on the cost to consumers. There are no plans to recover (the cost) from customers immediately,” he told reporters here.

Costing wise, the cleaner fuel should cost around 50 paisa a litre more.

He said a mechanism of recovering the cost when the whole country shifts to Euro-vi grade fuel will be worked out.

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. Experts say the shift will bring down sulphur content by at least five times from the current BS-IV levels, a whopping 80% reduction.

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.

And the fuel stations in the city, too, are ready for the transition. Nischal Singhania, president of Delhi Petroleum Dealers Association, said that all Delhi pumps have switched from BS-IV to BS-VI.

“Oil companies started supplying BS-VI fuel to the pumping stations in Delhi from the first week of March. All the 400-odd fuel stations have switched to cleaner fuel. Sampling has been done and everyone has got clearance. From tomorrow, the first invoice will be that of BS-VI,” Singhania said on Saturday.

He, however, was apprehensive of any possible future hike.

“We are keeping our fingers crossed that the prices stay the same,” said Singhania.