Government drops proposal to ban 15-year-old private vehicles. Instead, commercial and transport vehicles will be banned. BS-IV compliant petrol and diesel to be supplied from April 1 this year.
In order to go green, the Indian government decided to ban vehicles older than 15 years in Delhi. To overcome the problem of rising pollution in the capital, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) ordered to seize petrol and diesel vehicles older than 15 years. For such vehicles the RTO was suggested to not renew registration or fitness certificates. Now however, the proposal to mandate age limit of private vehicles has been dropped. Instead, this rule may come into force for commercial and transport vehicles.
Now the government is supposed to make vehicle fitness test more regular and stringent. The fitness testing period for every new vehicle purchased will be reduced from 15 years to 5 and after 15 years the fitness of the vehicle needs to be tested every 2-3 years. This move will now require the government to put new authorised test stations. Also, the ministry of petroleum and natural gas is intended to supply cleaner BSIV compliant motor fuel across India by April 1, 2017.
Northern India would get BS-IV compliant petrol and diesel by April 1 this year itself, while parts of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Kerala, Karnataka, etc. would get the cleaner fuel by April 1 next year and the rest in 2017. Immediate availability is not possible due to constraints such as availability of refineries for adequate quantity of BS-IV fuel, transportation and storage involved in conversion of BS-III to BS-IV. The oil ministry is also considering switching over directly from BS-IV to BS-VI by April 1, 2020 instead of upgrading step-wise. This would also help car manufacturers bring new engines to India that run on cleaner fuel.
