BS-VI fuel sales expand beyond Delhi to cover 60% NCR a year before deadline

NEW DELHI: Delhi’s fight against air pollution has received a boost as sale of BS-VI petrol and diesel has expanded beyond Delhi to cover 60% of the NCR (National Capital Region) spanning districts in Haryana, UP and Rajasthan from April 1, a year ahead of the deadline and will spread to 80% of the region by October.
Senior executives from IndianOil, the country’s largest fuel retailer, told TOI that four districts in Rajasthan and eight districts in UP, as well as the city of Agra, switched to BS-VI fuels from April following oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s directive two years back.
Amid public outcry over the capital's poor air quality in November 2017, Pradhan ordered state-run fuel retailers to supply BS-VI fuels to the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi from April 1, 2018, two years before the deadline, and introduce them in the NCR by April 2019. NCT refers to the state of Delhi, while the NCR extends to regions in neighbouring states and sometimes also includes Sonipat and Bahadurgarh.
“BS-VI fuels are now available in Alwar, Bharatpur, Karauli and Dhaulput districts of Rajasthan, though the last two are not part of the NCR. In Uttar Pradesh, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad, NOIDA, Baghpat, Hapur, Bulandshahr, Shamli and Agra have made the switch,” one company executive said.
The state-run fuel retailers will start pushing BS-VI fuels to flush pipelines and storage tanks from August so that Faridabad, Gurgaon, Mahendragarh, Rewari, Jhajjar, Palwal and Nuh in Haryana can make the switch in October. Bhiwani, Rohtak, Sonepat, Panipat, Jind and Karnal in Haryana will switch to BS-VI along with the rest of the country next April.
The NCR accounts for 10% of fuel sales in the country, consuming 105,000 tonne of petrol and 310,000 tonne of diesel in a year. As such, fuel quality improvement in the region has a bearing on Delhi’s air. The government last week cited studies in Parliament showing a steady decline in PM 10, a major air pollutant, in Delhi’s air and attributed it to availability of cleaner fuels among other factors. BS-VI fuels have 10 ppm (parts per million) of sulphur against 50 ppm in BS-IV standard. BS-VI petrol has 0.001 gram per litre lead against 0.005 in BS-IV.
Pradhan earlier this week categorically said at an industry function that the government, the oil refining industry and automobile manufacturers are totally “in sync” on the country moving to Euro-VI fuels and automotive engines from April 2020.