SC ruling on diesel vehicles ban today

NEW DELHI, OCT 3: The Supreme Court (SC) will deliberate tomorrow on the potentially explosive recommendations of the Environment Pollution (prevention and control) Authority (EPCA) to ban registration of new diesel cars in the capital.

To reduce the pollution caused by vehicular emissions, the high-powered authority headed by senior bureaucrat, Bhure Lal in its latest report reiterated its earlier recommendation and said "the registration of new diesel-driven private (non-commercial) passenger vehicles should be banned as this will cause an expansion of the problem by creating new use of diesel." Dismissing the arguments before the apex court that the diesel cars consists of only a small percentage of the total number of vehicles in Delhi, EPCA said "regardless of their number, they produce the worst component of the respirable suspended particulate matter (RSPM)."

Sounding a warning, the committee said "as the growth in cars in Delhi is now faster than even 2-wheelers, if even 25 per cent of new carsare going to be diesel-based, current trend shows that by March 2010, Delhi will see a diesel car population equal to half of the entire car population today."

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"The RSPM levels in the city could, therefore, increase dramatically," it added. EPCA said "to point out that pollutants also exist in petrol and CNG driven vehicular exhaust is to build up a case for comprehensive strategy that guards against other pollutants; it cannot become a defence for diesel."

It said this argument also hid the marketing strategy of vehicle manufacturers to take advantage of the price differential.