The problem of pollution in the world is increasing day by day. And the emissions from the vehicles play an important role in it; therefore, strict emission norms need to be enforced to keep a check.

India has for long lagged behind its western counterparts in checking vehicular emission at the source. But it seems that the difference will soon be filled as the Supreme Court has ordered that BS III vehicles won’t be sold and registered from April 1st.

But what really is BS?

BS stands for Bharat Stage, it tells about emission standards set up by the Indian government in order to put a limit on the air pollutants which come out of the internal combustion engines used in vehicles. It can be regarded as an Indian version of European emission standards and their purpose is also to reduce the emission from vehicles.

India got its first emission norms in 1991 for petrol vehicles and in 1992 for diesel vehicles. BS III was implemented in NCR and some other cities in 2005-2006 for reducing emission levels. Most of the western countries implemented Euro III from the year 2000 to 2005.

In 2010, BS III was implemented all over India and we were still behind the western countries, as they rolled out Euro 4 in January 2005, Euro 5 in September 2009 and Euro 6 by September 2014.

As per reports, BS IV will be implemented in all the new vehicles by April 1, 2017, but auto manufacturers are not happy with this decision. Few of them have appreciated and welcomed it but the majority is displeased, as they didn’t get enough time to upgrade their technology and dispose their existing BS III products.

The Supreme Court has made it clear that nothing is more important than the health of citizens, at least not the commercial interests. Mahindra has issued a statement in which it has said that it respects the decision given by SC but the ‘unexpected ruling will have a one-time material impact.’

This is what Tata Motors said,

“The Supreme Court order banning sale of all BS-III vehicles from April 1 is an unexpected and unprecedented move that will have a material impact on the entire automotive industry, OEMs’ and dealer networks and is a penalty to the entire automotive industry.”

The problems that these manufacturers will face now are that they will need time and resources to upgrade/develop engines and changes have to be made at the factory level. Many of them are still working on implementing the BS IV technology in their factories while Toyota did it a year back.

The manufacturers have also put forward the need of cleaner fuels as without these, it will be impossible to implement the new technology. Many are of the opinion that the basics are not in place for implementing BS IV.

However, the environmental institutions and the environmentalists have appreciated the decision of SC and they feel that it will help in reducing pollution to a great extent.

Executive Director of Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), Anumita Roychowdhury,  said,

“This is a significant step forward as this gives the message and the lesson that the automobile industry will have to walk the extra mile to address the expansive concern around public health and not weigh down the transition by taking a very narrow technical view.”

The importance of this decision increases further as India will skip BS V and will implement directly BS VI by the year 2020.

Undoubtedly, it will be a big issue for the automakers to handle but the Supreme Court’s decision is absolutely correct as nothing is more important than the health of people. What do you have to say in this connection? Share your views in the comments section below.

NOTE: All the images used in the article are for “Representational Purpose” Only.