Not feasible to supply BS6 fuel to 12 cities by 2019: Centre tells SC

NEWDELHI: The Centre on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that it was not feasible to supply the clean engine fuel, BS-VI, to 12 metro cities other than Delhi and the National Capital Region by April 2019, as suggested earlier by the top court.

It even ruled out increasing the price of diesel to dissuade the public from buying private vehicles running on the “dirty fuel.”

The SC had on March 26 asked the government to consider the possibility of advancing the introduction of BS-VI in 12 metro cities from April 2020 to April 2019. Delhi switched over to the clean fuel in April this year.

The top court is hearing a petition related to high air pollution levels in Delhi and had in the past issued a slew of measures to combat it. One such directive included levy of compensation cess on diesel vehicles with an engine capacity of over 2000 cc.

In an affidavit filed before the bench of justices MB Lokur and Deepak Gupta, the ministry of petroleum and natural gas said the public sector oil marketing companies had agreed to introduce BS-VI fuel in phases in 17 of the 23 NCR districts ahead of the pan-india schedule of April 2020.

Four districts in Rajasthan and eight in UP will get BS-VI services by April 2019, while seven in Haryana will get it from October 2019. Implementation of BS-VI in remaining six districts falling in the Ncr—bhiwani, Rohtak, Sonepat, Panipat, Jind and Karnal— will be only in April 2020.

Agra is the only metro that is likely to get BS-VI by April 2019, the ministry said. Advancement of BS-VI supply is not possible in Kanpur, Lucknow, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai, Pune, Sholapur, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai due to non-availability of product and logistical constraints.

On diesel pricing, the government said it was not possible to increase the central excise duty and state VAT on the fuel because it would have an adverse impact on inflation and will impact all sectors, including agriculture and transport. Prices of petrol and diesel have been made market-determined since 2010 and private vehicles consume just 13 per cent of the total sale of diesel cars.

The SC order was of August 2016 and since then the government has collected around ₹75 crore through the cess. This shows that citizens continue to purchase diesel vehicles.