Heavy-Duty Pressure

The government has stalled standards that could have made heavy-duty vehicles guzzle and pollute less. Is it hand-in-glove with the industry or under pressure from it?

- Banjot Kaur And Polash Mukerjee

IT SEEMS the automobile industry lobby has once again succeeded in undermining India’s efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Or else, why would fuel efficiency standards for heavy-duty vehicles (HDVS) be put on hold just three days before the roll out?

Word has it that on March 29, Nitin Gadkari, the Minister for Road, Transport and Highways (MORTH) held a closed-door meeting with the ministers and secretaries of the power and the petroleum and natural gas ministries and asked them to look afresh into the standards. These are the ministries that had deliberated for three long years along with industry body, Society of Indian Automobile Manufactures (siam), to devise standards to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from HDVS as well to reduce the fuel import bill; India depends on imports to meet 80 percent of its crude oil demand.

The proposed standards were in line with the government’s attempt to create fuel-efficiency norms for vehicle segments in different phases. In 2014, similar norms were introduced for passenger cars. Though HDVS have so far remained scot-free, estimates show that they emit more CO2 than cars as they travel long distances and thus consume more fuel. Besides, almost all HDVS run on diesel, the most polluting fuel.