Ramesh remark earns green pat, auto lobby frown

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh’s claim that using sports utility vehicles (SUVs), BMWs and diesel vehicles in India was “criminal” has earned him support from environment groups and censure from the auto lobby.

Updated on: Nov 14, 2010, 01:59:39 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Environment minister Jairam Ramesh’s claim that using sports utility vehicles (SUVs), BMWs and diesel vehicles in India was “criminal” has earned him support from environment groups and censure from the auto lobby.

The Centre for Science and Environment on Saturday said diesel vehicles emit more toxic particulate matter and nitrogen oxide — rising pollutants in Indian cities — than petrol cars.

Major Indian cities have the highest particulate matter pollution among 230 Asian cities as per a recent survey of Clean Air Initiative Asia.

Auto manufacturers didn’t agree with either Ramesh or the CSE, saying diesel vehicles running in India were most fuel efficient and the least polluting.

“The auto industry appears to be a favourite whipping boy for the environment lobby,” said Vishnu Mathur, director-general of Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

Germany also took exception to Ramesh’s remarks, saying German auto technology was far advanced in reducing fuel consumption and emissions.

“It is very difficult to imagine that Ramesh has made such specific comments on fuel technology with reference to German automotive manufacturers,” German ambassador Thomas Matussek said in a statement.

Big cars and SUVs now constitute about 36 per cent of the total car sales in India and already 30 per cent of cars on Delhi roads are fuel-guzzling mid-size or big cars. SIAM data, however, shows that SUVs just constitute 3 lakh of the 2.5 million car sales every year in the country.

“While the expanding SUV fleet with large engines undermine the fuel savings in the transport sector, the plume of emissions from India’s diesel cars make the urban air more toxic,” said Anumita Roy Choudhury of NGO Centre for Science and Environment.

Ramesh had talked about fiscal measures including higher taxes as a disincentive towards diesel cars.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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