The Hindu : Centre playing with health of Delhiites

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 21, 2003

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Centre playing with health of Delhiites

By Sujay Mehdudia

NEW DELHI MAY 20. Unmindful of the damage being caused to the quality of air and the health of people by vehicular pollution in the Capital, the Union Ministry for Road Transport and Highways continues to sit over the Delhi Government's request to effect changes in the maintenance and inspection of pollution control norms for in-use vehicles by making them more stringent with advanced test procedures.

So callous has been the Ministry's attitude that it has failed to press ahead with the new norms despite repeated reminders. The spate of communications by the Delhi Transport Minister, Ajay Maken, to the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highway, B.C. Khanduri, have had no effect as the BJP-led Central Government turns a blind eye to the health of the citizens and environment of the Capital. In fact, the Delhi Government had written a number of times to the Central Government that an effective inspection and maintenance programme to curb vehicular pollution in the city was needed in view of the vast fleet including a particularly large number of highly polluting two-wheelers.

Through a detailed communication, Mr. Maken had urged Mr. Khanduri to introduce tighter emission norms for diesel passenger cards as this category of vehicles was growing in cities. These vehicles could be highly polluting, especially if their after-treatment devices do not function effectively. The Delhi Government had proposed that these vehicles should be subjected to loaded tests, immediately and therefore, emission norms for CO, HC, Nox and PM for loaded mode tests was needed urgently. For the petrol vehicles, it had suggested the need to shift to four-gas analyzers and enable lambda test for catalyst equipped vehicles. The advantage of analysing all four gases was that it enabled verification of the performance of the engine and the catalytic converters.

As for the most polluting two-wheeler segment, the Delhi Government has stressed the need for more stringent hydrocarbon norm. It pointed out that no new two-wheelers would fail at the Pollution Under Control centre if the limit of 9,000 ppm is implemented. If the Indian two-wheeler industry meets one of the most stringent mass emissions norms in the world today, the in use emissions norms for new vehicles should be commensurately tighter than what has been proposed.

Regarding introduction of improved test procedure like transient loaded test and stringent emissions standards for diesel commercial vehicles, it has pointed this vehicle category would need a transient loaded mode test focusing on measurement of particulate and oxides of nitrogen (NOx). The current norms of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways were totally inadequate. The Central Government urgently needs to specify the in-use emission norms for CO, HC, NOx and Pm on a loaded test.

Apart from this, the Delhi Government has also sought tightening of standards and introduction of improved test procedures for CNG vehicles. At present, CNG buses are checked for idle CO as part of fitness inspection. Currently, the limit value is maximum 3.0 per cent and this is far too lax a value, especially when all buses are equipped with catalytic converters. These values should be comparable with emission limits for CNG vehicles in United States where a maximum of 0.5 per cent CO is accepted for CNG buses. The test procedure, it has suggested, for emission measurement should be transient loaded mode test focusing on the measurement of NOx. The Central Government needs to specify the NOx emission norms immediately.

But these suggestions continue to gather dust in the corridors of the power in the Central Government with little concern for the fact that not only the continued delay was causing immense harm to the health of citizens but also negating the efforts to improve the air quality in the Capital.

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