Delhi fails to meet pollution control deadline

The Hindu, Saturday, October 02, 2004
Correspondent : Sujay Mehdudia
NEW DELHI, OCT. 1. Putting a question mark over the resolve to wage a battle against air and vehicular pollution, the Delhi Government and other cities including Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata have failed to meet the October 1 deadline for enforcing upgraded Pollution Under Control (PUC) norms. The norms were to become effective all over the country but the State Governments have failed to act and put in place a proper implementation plan putting a spoke in the wheel of the inspection programme.

The revised in-use emission norms notified in February 2004 have remained a non-starter as the State Governments have failed to develop a time-bound implementation plan. Even the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways went into deep slumber after notifying the new in-use emissions norms as it failed to coordinate with the State Governments to ensure enforcement.

Reacting to the callous approach of the various Governments including the Delhi Government, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) Coordinator (Air Pollution), Anumita Roychowdhury, said the most unfortunate part of the whole situation was that even today there was no clear plan of action to contain this cascading delay and implement the upgraded norms.

However, the Delhi Government Secretary (Transport), Rajeev Talwar, said that Delhi would implement the new norms from November 1 as no instruments of the upgraded version were available. The manufacturers are asking for six to eight weeks for delivery, he added. Under the new regime, the PUC check would now cost Rs. 35 instead of Rs. 25 in view of the increase in input cost.

Under the revised norms both carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons will be measured in petrol vehicles and smoke in diesel vehicles with correction factors to ensure the authenticity of tests.

For the first time the PUC norms have been set according to the technology levels of the petrol vehicles - separate for pre and post Euro-I compliant vehicles. The testing instruments -- called two gas analysers, currently used in PUC centres do not have the required sensitivity to measure the lower limits fixed for post Euro-I vehicles. Therefore, these will have to be replaced with more advanced four-gas analysers. Similarly, smoke meters are to be upgraded for diesel vehicles.

The CSE said it was sad to note that despite the lure of a multi-crore business that the new norms have created, the trade had failed to respond. Assuming a lower bound estimate of 10,000 PUC centres across the country, the investment in new instruments promises a business of Rs 250 crores. Delhi alone has 400 centres adding up a business of Rs 10 crores. But the instrument manufacturers have not even built adequate inventory of instruments to sell.

 
SOURCE : The Hindu, saturday, October 02, 2004
 


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