States drag feet on way to CNG break

Besides, EPCA members believe it will help in another critical area — once CNG comes in, the pressure on oil companies to supply cleaner petrol and diesel will be more. EPCA and NGOs such as the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) believe the only way to deal with the problem is to leapfrog to Euro IV instead of Euro III as mandated in the Auto Fuel Policy.

Most cities are lagging behind in planning and might not be able to incorporate the changes. At a three-day CSE workshop on ‘‘The Leapfrog Factor: Towards Clean Air in Asian Cities’’, most pollution control representatives from other cities showed how poor their planning is when urgent intervention is required to combat air pollution.

These cities are nowhere close to what Delhi was seven years ago in their planning. ‘‘We have not told these cities about the CNG plan because we don’t want a repeat of what happened in Delhi,’’ GAIL chairman Proshanto Banerjee said. Talks are being held with state authorities one by one.

Operation Blue Sky shows how gas will be plentiful, contrary to what is believed so far: Agra, Kanpur, Lucknow, Bareilly get gas by 2004. Allahabad, Jhansi, Mathura, Gwalior, Ujjain and Indore get it by early 2006. Hyderabad, Rajahmundry and Solapur get it by second half of 2006. Vijayawada and Ahmedabad, get it by second half of 2005 while Rajkot and Surendranagar get it by the second half of 2006. Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore might be the last ones as efforts are on to take the line from Kakinada in AP.

‘‘We are working on the premise that we will not get CNG but only LPG. In this respect, we have two problems — LPG is not as cheap as CNG and there is irregular usage of domestic cylinders in vehicles,’’ said a member of the TN Pollution Control Board. ‘‘It has to be a combination of regulation and persuasion.’’

This, when other Asian cities are encouraging vehicle-owners to switch to cleaner fuels. Hong Kong is the first city in the world to introduce ultra-low sulphur diesel with the help of fiscal incentives and tightened emission norms while China will have Euro IV norms from 2005, the same time as Europe.