Come April 1, 2020, our country will move to new emission norms that will see us move from BS4 grade fuel to the much cleaner BS6, for both petrol and diesel. Although the new norms are still a few months away from being implemented, some states have already begun preparing for them by switching to the higher-grade fuel.

The National Capital Region (NCR) is among the early adopters of the cleaner fuel – from April 1, 2019, parts of NCR, including four districts of Rajasthan (Alwar, Bharatpur, Karauli and Dhaulpur), eight districts of Uttar Pradesh (Meerut, Muzzafarnagar, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar, Baghpat, Hapur, Bulandshar and Shamli) and Agra city started the switch to BS6 fuel.

As of October 1, 2019, the remaining districts in NCR, which include Faridabad, Gurugram, Mahendraghar, Rewari, Jhajjar, Palwal and Mewat, have also begun receiving BS6 grade petrol and diesel at outlets of Indian Oil Corporation ltd. (IOCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL). These seven districts have an average monthly volume of around 6,50,000 metric tonnes with 13 oil bulk locations, which have now been converted from BS4 to BS6 specifications.

In addition, the IOCL refineries in Panipat and Mathura started providing BS6 grade petrol and diesel to meet the more stringent BS6 emission norms, well before the original target which was 2020.