From April 2017, only BS-IV compliant vehicles will be sold and registered in the country as the government plans to shift to BS-IV emission standards pan India by then.
In a bid to reduce the pollution levels across the nation by a significant amount, the Government of India has decided to shift to Bharat Stage (BS) IV emission norms by April 2017. The shift from BS-III to BS-IV will be done in a phased manner and by 2017, it would be implemented all across India. With the shift to BS-IV compliant fuel, only BS-IV complaint vehicles will be allowed to be sold and registered from April 2017. Major cities including Mumbai, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai had shifted to BS-IV standards earlier itself which meant BS-III vehicles couldn’t be registered there.
To implement the new emission standard across the country, the government has devised a two phase approach. In the first phase, BS-IV emission norms will be introduced in Jammu and Kashmir excluding Leh and Kargil, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and some districts of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. This will be done by the month of October this year. In the second phase, Odisha, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, three union territories and some districts of Maharashtra and Gujarat. The second phase of the shift will be completed by April 2016 and the norms will be applicable all across India from April 2017.
After the shift to BS-IV norms, the amount of carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbon (HC), oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and sulphur (SOx) will reduce by a big margin as the components causing the emission of the same are much lesser in BS-IV fuel as compared to BS-III fuel. With new safety norms also ready to be implemented from 2017, automakers need to make the required changes to their cars in order to comply with the norms as and when they are enforced. The government has given enough time for the switch to happen which will assist the ones involved in the process.
