'Go by emissions, not age, to scrap vehicles'

The National Capital Region (NCR) requires a more scientific basis to phase out polluting vehicles instead of a blanket rule that forces residents to discard their "end-of-life" vehicles, experts have recommended, adding that the authorities should invest in on-road emission tests and strengthen pollution-under-control (PUC) tests to detect vehicles that actually harm the environment.

- Jasjeev Gandhiok

In Delhi, no vehicle which is 15 years old can legally operate on the roads, according to orders issued by the National Green Tribunal in 2015, and the Supreme Court in 2018. For diesel vehicles, this time period is cut down to 10 years. The government calls them "end-of-life" vehicles.

The aim behind these rules is to cut down on the number of vehicles on the city's roads with dated emission standards, and over the past few months, the Delhi transport department has accelerated its drive to impound 10-year-old diesel and 15-year-old petrol vehicles, sending them to be scrapped in yards located in Uttar Pradesh-Delhi at present has no scrapyard for vehicles.

BS-VI or Bharat Stage VI are the latest emission norms in the country, and any new vehicle being manufactured has to comply to its standards. The norms are much more stringent than the previous BS-IV norms-for example, BS-VI allows for diesel vehicles to emit nitrous oxides (NOx) at a rate of 80 mg/km, compared to 250 mg/km for BS-IV.

However, the existing PUC test only monitors carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrocarbons (HC), not other emissions such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter.

In 2017, the Supreme Court-mandated Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority now dissolved had informed the court in its Report No. 73 that the current PUC certificate mechanism negated the impact of switching to tighter emission standards.