Can star rating on fuel efficiency be displayed on motor vehicles? NGT asks Union Govt

The NGT’s principal bench headed by chairperson Justice Prakash Shrivastava heard the matter last Friday and the order was made public on Wednesday. The bench sought responses from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Ministry of Power, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and Ministry of Heavy Industries.

“In this original application, the applicant is seeking implementation of a star rating system for all passenger vehicles based on fuel efficiency and CO2 emission. The said prayer has been made based on the plea that vehicular pollution is the most important contributory factor in air pollution and as per the Ministry of Earth Sciences, vehicular pollution is responsible for 40% of such air pollution,” the order noted.

Dr Kulshreshtha’s plea said that with air pollution going from bad to worse, despite sincere efforts of the government, there was a need to enforce more emission restrictions on vehicular pollution like the star rating system.

Although the Centre had brought out fuel efficiency norms, there is no star rating or green labelling system for vehicles in the country yet. The plea said that in most developed countries it is a legal requirement to display a label on all light vehicles under 3.5 tonnes, to display fuel consumption on the windscreen.