India OEMs committed to meeting BS IV, VI deadlines, want Centre to be firm with timeline

The Indian auto industry is committed to meet the challenge of meeting the upcoming BS VI emission norms by 2020.

According to Vinod Dasari, president of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), having leapfrogged BS V, meeting BS VI emission norms in less than four years is very stiff but the auto industry has accepted the challenge in view of the rising concerns on vehicular pollution, especially in urban metros.

In a press note, Dasari said: “India has been the fastest at adopting new safety and emission norms.  This leapfrog would make India the first country in the world to accomplish such an accelerated progression in vehicular emission norms.”

This would not only entail a significant telescoping of long-term investments into a much shorter timeframe of 3-4 years, but also deployment of a much larger technical resource drawn from all over the world to enable compression in the time taken for technical development, testing and validation of the vehicles in Indian conditions.

Dasari, however, cautioned that once the industry has chosen to go down the path of leapfrogging the emission norms, this roadmap should not be changed or delayed midway for any reason. He hoped that the oil sector would fulfil its role by making the required fuel available on a countrywide basis as per the new timeline and have testing fuel available a year earlier. He said that the exemptions given to oil companies in some of the fuel specifications will make it even more difficult for the auto industry to meet other mandatory norms like those on fuel efficiency.

Commenting on the two-wheeler industry, Dasari said that considering that Euro 5 emission norms (equivalent to BS VI) in Europe are not yet finalised, this is a matter of concern for the Indian two-wheeler industry as India’s emission regulation will be ahead of Europe.

Dasari concluded by saying that the industry is fully committed and ready to implement BS IV across the country on April 1, 2017 and is now awaiting fuel availability on an all-India basis.

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