Your health finds no place in vehicle emission policy

The government has launched the process to formulate a new policy to declare emission standards for vehicles, but the impact of rising vehicular pollution on public health is missing from its purview.

Updated on: Feb 18, 2013, 02:25:11 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The government has launched the process to formulate a new policy to declare emission standards for vehicles, but the impact of rising vehicular pollution on public health is missing from its purview.

Two years after India's last auto-fuel policy lapsed with the notification of Bharat Stage IV emission norms for vehicles in select cities, the government woke up from its slumber and constituted a committee to suggest a new auto fuel roadmap for 2025.

The petroleum ministry has asked the committee, headed by plan panel member Saumitra Chaudhuri, to recommend new emission standards for vehicles on the road as well as new ones - taking into consideration achievements under the last policy, growth of vehicular population and availability of fuel.

The terms of reference of the committee are heavily loaded in favour of automobile manufacturers and fuel companies, with not a single mention of the deteriorating air pollution levels in India.

Of the 13 committee members, only one is an environment-economist. Most of the others are linked with the auto sector or fuel companies.

Around one-fourth of the air pollution-related deaths in Asia happen in India, the latest report from the World Health Organisation states. Delhi was rated as most polluted city in the world by Yale University last year, and the Central Pollution Control Board - the country's pollution watchdog - says that only 5% of the 250 cities monitored have air quality better than the recommended standard.

Anumita Roy Chaudhury of the Centre for Science and Environment said that the increasing number of roads was the biggest contributor to rising air pollution levels in Indian cities.

The government wants the committee to recommend a policy for reducing vehicular emissions. The entire emission regime would depend on whether the oil companies would be able to create infrastructure to provide cleaner fuel for vehicles and auto manufacturers would come up with better vehicle technologies.

The committee has been asked to recommend a suitable mix of automobile fuels, including gas and its specifications, keeping in mind infrastructure availability, fuel processing costs, and logistics.

Another key area for the committee to explore would be the removal of inter-fuel distortions and alternative fuels that minimise the impact on the environment. The committee will also look into new emission norms, but they are unlikely to come into effect before 2017.

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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