No sale of new diesel vehicles with 2000cc plus engines till March 31: SC

Unmindful of the repercussions that it could have on the investment climate of the country, the Supreme Court on December 16, 2015 has put a blanket ban on sale of all diesel vehicles in Delhi that have an engine capacity of 2000 cc or above. The ruling has come two weeks before the Delhi government's 15-day odd-even experiment to regulate the number of cars on city roads begins on January 1, 2016.

“Why should a rich man travel in a diesel car and pollute the environment,” a bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur had asked a day before this ruling. The moot point, however, is that rich men may be driving luxury cars like Mercedes-Benz and BMW, but it’s the middle class that drives the cars from Mahindra & Mahindra, Toyota, Tata Motors, etc.  Besides, with Delhi’s terribly maintained roads,  Mahindra SUV kind of vehicles are the ones that are able to withstand the rough conditions.  

This decision effectively stops the sale of popular vehicles such as Toyota’s Fortuner and Innova, Mahindra & Mahindra’s Scorpio, XUV 500, Thar, Bolero and Xylo, Tata Motors’ Tata Safari, Safari Storme and Sumo, and Mitsubishi Pajero, among several other vehicles during the ban period, but existing diesel cars can continue to ply.

Among the luxury car makers, the biggest hit would be Mercedes-Benz India and BMW India. The court, however, said that existing diesel cars can continue to ply.

The apex court, however, said it would consider a plea for new registrations when Euro-4 diesel engines with improved emission standards are introduced in April 2016. It added that buyers of diesel vehicles should pay environment compensation charge while getting their cars registered.

Delhi adds around 1400 new cars to its streets every day (these are mainly small cars from the stables of Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai Motor India). It has around 8.5 million vehicles currently plying on its roads.  Cars definitely pollute, but equally polluting are the burning of waste,  dust raised by construction activities, etc.

The SC bench headed by Chief Justice TS Thakur also banned the entry of trucks registered before 2005 into the city and hiked up by 100pc the Green cess levied on commercial vehicles entering Delhi. Any commercial vehicle not bound for Delhi will not be allowed to enter the city through entry points at National Highway 1 and 8. Taxi operators, even private ones like Uber and Ola, will have to have a CNG by March 31, 2016.

 On December 11, 2015, the NGT had banned registration of new diesel vehicles till January 6, 2016 in Delhi amid rising concerns over pollution in the city. It also told the government not to renew the registration of diesel vehicles more than 10 years old.

The three prime sources of air pollution in Delhi as well as NCR, according to NGT are burning of municipal waste, dust generated by construction and vehicular pollution.  The NGT had addressed the issues related to waste burning and construction dust in its previous orders. Sadly, waste burning still continues while construction continues in full force in every corner of Delhi and NCR.

Motown India magazine compiled a list of vehicles that will be affected by this  new Supreme Court decision on banning diesel vehicles with engine capacities of 2 litre plus.

Speaking to the media a few days back, Dr. Pawan Goenka, Executive Director, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, noted that “diesel vehicles have become the whipping boy”  and are being seen as the “biggest villains”. “Over the years diesel fuel and vehicles have become a favourite whipping boy in our country," he said. He asked that "when our product is meeting all laws of the land how can it be banned overnight.” 

Dr Goenka’s company Mahindra & Mahindra is perhaps the only automobile major in India that has in its portfolio only diesel engines and many of its diesel vehicles like Scorpio, XUV 500, the newly launched TUV 300 and Bolero are extremely popular in Delhi in the passenger car segment.

Dr Goenka said the debate on pollution was not new and in fact started in 1999 when the Supreme Court made it clear that no distinction was to be made between diesel and petrol fuel when it came to curbing pollution. “In 1999 an application was made to the Supreme Court to ban diesel vehicles in Delhi and the court made a decision that we implement emission norms and not look at the fuel diesel or petrol. The court said that BS II norms should be implemented immediately for diesel and petrol. Therefore the question of differentiating diesel and petrol was kind of settled by the Supreme Court in 1999. Since then the emission norms were made tighter for both diesel and petrol and therefore I don’t know why once again diesel is being looked at as the culprit even thought the vehicles sold today are meeting all the emission norms being prescribed by the Government of India,” he pointed out.