On April 1, 2017, the Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan, formally launched the low-emission and eco-friendly BS-IV grade fuel across the country from Bhubaneswar by symbolically commencing its sale.
The event coincided with Utkal Divas (formation day of the state) celebration in Odisha and was telecast live to 12 different locations – Varanasi, Vijayawada, Durgapur, Gorakhpur, Imphal, Bhopal, Ranchi, Madurai, Nagpur, Patna, Guwahati and Shillong.
The petroleum minister stated that the launch signifies a new era of clean transportation fuels and is aimed at substantially reducing pollution levels everywhere.
He complimented the OMCs (oil marketing companies) for working in unison to set up refining infrastructure and logistics in record time for the launch of BS-IV grade fuels as per schedule. The OMCs are incurring an expenditure of Rs 90,000 crore on phase-wise upgradation of fuel quality in the country.
The next step is to usher in BS-VI fuels by April 1, 2020, to be on par with global standards, he said.
India’s path to green fuels
The increasing consumption of oil is directly linked to atmospheric pollution and health issues due to the deteriorating effect on air quality in urban areas worldwide. Following is India’s journey with relation to air-pollution control.
- India’s fuel quality standards have been gradually tightened since the mid-1990s. The fuel upgradation programme took off with notification of vehicular emission norms for new vehicles in 1991.
- The emission norms were revised in 1996. Low-lead petrol was introduced in 1994 in the four metros – Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.
- On February 1, 2000, unleaded petrol was mandated nationwide.
- BS 2000 (Euro-I equivalent, Bharat Stage-I) vehicle emission norms were introduced for new vehicles from April 2000.
- Bharat Stage II (Euro-II equivalent) emission norms for new cars were introduced in Delhi from the 2000 and extended to the other three metro cities in 2001.
- The emission norms for CNG and LPG vehicles were notified in 2000 and 2001, respectively. BS-III was implemented in phases during 2005-2010.
- The current BS-IV fuel with 50ppm (parts per million) sulphur was introduced in 2010 and it was to cover the entire country by April 1, 2017.
- In 2016, the government of India decided to meet international best practices by leapfrogging directly from BS-IV to BS-VI norms by skipping BS-V altogether by April 1, 2020.
- As part of its focus on clean energy, the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas is actively promoting city gas distribution networks and connecting major cities with 'green highways', which will have vehicles running on CNG and LNG with adequate re-fuelling stations.
- 27.5 lakh vehicles in the country are benefiting from availability of CNG.
- So far, 80 cities/districts of 19 states/UTs have been covered for development of PNG/CNG network.
Viraaj Bhatnagar
Uday Singh
Suraj Viswanathan
Lenny D'sa
Saptarshi Mondal
