India switches to world's cleanest petrol, diesel
NEW DELHI: India on Wednesday joined a select league of nations having the world's cleanest petrol and diesel as oil companies rolled out Euro-vi emission compliant fuels without either disruption or a price increase.
Leapfrogging from BS-IV grade fuel straight to BS-VI grade, equivalent to Euro-vi fuel, petrol and diesel would have resulted in an up to Re 1 per litre increase in cost but oil companies decided against passing this on to consumers and instead adjusted it against the reduction warranted from international oil prices plummeting to a 17-year low.
"We are today 100 per cent supplying BS-VI petrol and diesel. All the over 68,700 petrol pumps in the country are selling the cleaner fuel from today," said Sanjiv Singh, Chairman, Indian Oil Corp (IOC) - the firm that controls roughly half of the market.
He said there is no change in the retail selling price of the fuels because of the switchover.
Oil companies have not changed petrol and diesel price for over a fortnight now as they first adjusted the reduction warranted against the Rs 3 per litre increase in excise duty and now are setting off the increased cost of BS-VI fuel. Petrol and diesel rates were last revised on March 16. A litre of petrol in Delhi comes for Rs 69.59 and diesel is priced at Rs 62.29.
Singh said the switch over from BS-IV to BS-VI was achieved in just three years, a feat not seen in any of the large economies around the globe.
India will join the select league of nations using petrol and diesel containing just 10 parts per million of sulphur as it looks to cut vehicular emissions that are said to be one of the reasons for the choking pollution in major cities.
State-owned oil refineries spent about Rs 35,000 crore to upgrade plants that could produce ultra-low sulphur fuel. This investment is on top of Rs 60,000 crore they spent on refinery upgrades in the previous switchovers. India adopted a fuel up-gradation programme in the early 1990s. Low lead gasoline (petrol) was introduced in 1994 in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai. On February 1, 2000, unleaded gasoline was mandated nationwide.