9 lakh outdated BS-III vehicles would be in stock as of April 1: EPCA told

New Delhi, Feb 3 (IANS) Challenging the Supreme Court appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority's (EPCA) directive to stop manufacturing and registration of vehicles running on BS-III compliant fuel from April 1, 2017, onwards, automobile manufacturers on Friday said they would have stocks of about 8.9 lakh vehicles by then.

The EPCA, along with other organisations, in its meeting on Friday asked the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) for clarity on what to do with such a huge stockpile of BS-III compliant vehicles, that would need to be phased out.

Meanwhile, in the meeting it was decided that Delhi and the National Capital Region would stop registration of BS-III vehicles from April 1.

In 2016, EPCA observed that switching to BS-IV fuel will help reduce air pollution by 80 per cent through reduction in particulate matter (PM) emissions, the major effluent in air.

Earlier, the EPCA, Union Ministries of Road Transport and Petroleum had decided that from April 1, 2017, onwards BS-IV oil shall be made available throughout the nation and mulled over stopping registration of BS-III vehicles.

BS- IV and III (Bharat Stage) are the fuel types based on vehicular emission standards fixed by the Indian government, to regulate air pollution.

"Delhi and Uttar Pradesh transport departments had anyway agreed to stop the registration of BS-III vehicles from April 1 onwards," Centre for Science and Environment research associate Polash Mukerjee told IANS.

The National Capital already has BS-IV compliant fuel available, while the Indian government aspires to shift to the least polluting BS-VI fuel type by 2020.

According to experts, the huge stockpile of BS-III compliant vehicles would act as a roadblock in the government's pro-environment initiatives.

According to sources, SIAM has informed that there are as many as 20,000 passenger vehicles, 75,000 commercial vehicles, 47,000 three wheelers and about 7,50,000 two wheelers, which will be yet to be sold as of April 1.

"SIAM was in 2015 informed that BS-III type would be discarded. In October 2016 they along with Chief Secretaries of all the states were informed again to work on discarding the BS-III fuel type, yet the manufacturers keep manufacturing old technology vehicles because those are cheaper," an EPCA member told IANS requesting not to be named.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh came in for praise by the EPCA for successfully developing the mechanism to impose the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP).

The team of Uttar Pradesh led by the state's Additional Chief Secretary Sanjiv Saran, has selected certain officials who would be responsible for imposing the GRAP in four districts of the state falling under NCR -- Noida, Ghaziabad, Meerut and Hapur.

Haryana was asked by the EPCA to look into the public transport in Gurugram, where the concept of city buses as in Delhi, is virtually absent.

The EPCA has been given the responsibility to implement the different categories of the GRAP, which was submitted to the apex court by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCP) earlier this month.

(This story has not been edited by Social News XYZ staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)