Clean Fuel~II
The source of energy for domestic and commercial use in rural and semi-urban areas is largely fuelwood which contributes to more than 93 per cent of Greenhouse Gas emissions from the forestry sector in India.
The introduction of BS VI fuel in the Capital may lead to reduction in sulphur levels by 80 per cent but it would not help much in reducing pollution in the city until auto manufacturers introduce BS VI compliant vehicles whose engines are more refined, said senior officials of the Petroleum Ministry and oil marketing companies.
Rolling out the BS VI fuel, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan claimed that it would bring down sulphur by five times from the current BS IV levels.
“This is an 80 per cent reduction… which makes it extremely clean. It will improve emissions from the existing fleet, even from the older vehicles on the road. BS-VI is as clean as CNG or even cleaner than CNG in some respects,” he said.
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However, according to senior officials of the Petroleum Ministry, the introduction of BS VI level fuel in the Capital from 1 April would not help much as most of the engines running in the NCR region are not BS VI compliant.
“BS VI level fuel cannot help alone in reducing pollution levels. Equal stress should be laid on improving engine efficiency. Half the engines are old and as regards BS VI complaint vehicles, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) has already said that it cannot introduced BS VI complaint vehicles before 2020… given the situation, BS VI would not reduce pollution level as expected,” said a senior officer of Indian Oil Corporation.
Oil marketing companies have met the target of introducing BS VI fuel in NCR region from 1 April. There were some teething problems on the first day but now everything is okay, an official said.
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