Greens Target Diesel on Roads of India's Polluted Capital

By Frederick Noronha

NEW DELHI, India, July 7, 2004 (ENS) - Got a ticket to ride? Politicians in India's once badly polluted national capital New Delhi are now making it easy for citizens to zip around in diesel cars, making greens see red in this city of 13.7 million.

"Alarming levels of dieselization of the personal car fleet in Delhi threatens to enhance toxification of the city's air," said the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), one of India's most prominent green lobby groups. "Enormous efforts made to control toxic diesel particulate pollution through the largest ever CNG [compressed natural gas] program in the world may get lost."

In a public protest letter written to Delhi's Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, CSE said this could happen if immediate steps are not taken to restrict the expansion of the fleet of personal diesel cars that meet only ineffective emissions standards.

Car companies have been aggressive about diesel cars. Environmentalists accuse carmakers of taking "drastic advantage" of the Indian government's policy of keeping diesel prices low. The greens accuse the Government of "least concern" and "playing alone" when the companies put out "white lies" in their advertisement campaigns.

Delhi has the highest per capita income in India, but the lowest diesel prices. Sales tax on diesel here is just 12 percent, making diesel prices over one-third cheaper than petrol. Most federal states of India have a minimum 20 percent sales tax on diesel.

"Delhi is not even imposing the minimum 20 percent sales tax on diesel, as is enforced by other states. In the commercial capital of Mumbai or Bombay, for instance, the sales tax on diesel is as high as 34 percent," said CSE.

The lobby group, which publishes India's only nationally read fortnightly magazine "Down to Earth," said if the Delhi government could apply the polluter pays principle and bring the sales tax on diesel at par with Mumbai's rates, then it could net in as much as Rs 7000 million (US$152.2 million)per year.

In recent months, Delhi has shifted its buses over to less polluting compressed natural gas fuel, improving the city's air quality. Delhi had earlier earned notoriety for its high pollution levels.

The Energy Research Institute (TERI), a prominent Indian think-tank, observes that in the absence of a convenient and efficient public transport system in urban areas, there has been an increasing trend towards commuting to work in personal motor vehicles.

This proves to be more energy intensive and polluting than public transport, and also more expensive to the economy.

Since 1999, CSE has campaigned to have private diesel cars banned in Delhi. "Deadly facts about diesel toxicity and health effects were beginning to pour in from other parts of the world," the group says.

"A big finding," CSE said, was that "diesel fumes consisted of 10 to 100 times more particles than petrol exhaust, and were several times more toxic."

During the same period, car fleets in other Indian cities began to turn to diesel fuel. Direct subsidies on diesel had been dismantled, and gasoline, or petrol, attracted higher taxes.

In April 1999, action came from India's Supreme Court clamped down somewhat on dieselization.

Within 30 days of the court's ruling, India's automobile industry had to meet Euro I standards. These took effect in Europe in 1992, and were to be enforced in India in 2000.

The court gave India's automobile industry another nine months to meet Euro II standards, which were enforced in Europe in 1996. The Indian government wanted to bring the Euro II standards into effect in 2005, but moved the date forward in Delhi, under pressure.

Refineries too had to fall in line and provide fuel clean enough to meet the European standards.

But, by 2003, figures indicated that diesel car sales were showing up to 33 percent growth over a 10 month period.

Some of India's largest carmakers are now entering the market with diesel versions. Maruti Udyog Ltd. (MUL), which dominates the market with its low cost cars, is setting up a diesel engine assembly plant at Gurgaon near Delhi. Diesel cars are about five percent of the total MUL production and MUL currently imports its diesel engines.

Hyundai Motor India Ltd. has been working to roll out a diesel version of one of its most popular model, the Santro. The Indian unit of Italy's Fiat Auto Spa has also been working on plans to introduce a new diesel sedan.

"Going by the plans Indian automobile manufacturers are gleefully hatching, the future looks bleakly dieselized," warns the CSE. "Let us understand that in India, the quality of diesel used is extremely poor. Moreover, the Indian government is not interested in providing cleaner diesel. In such a scenario, the effect more diesel cars on Indian roads are going to have is absolutely disastrous."

In 1985, attorney and environmentalist M.C. Mehta filed a public interest lawsuit regarding the pollution caused by diesel cars. At that time, India's Supreme Court debated banning diesel cars in New Delhi.

On the other hand, counsel for automakers Telco Fali Nariman has argued that 93 percent of private vehicles registered in Delhi were gasoline powered vehicles, and contended that benzene emissions from these petrol vehicles are "as carcinogenic as suspended particulate matter and nitrogen oxides in diesel."

Says TERI, "With growing traffic congestion, thousands of dismayed drivers in the urban areas are finding out that rush hour traffic is slowing to a crawl. This in turn leads to higher oil consumption and emissions which are poisoning the urban areas."

Road pollution in India is seen as being worsened by the poor condition of many of the vehicles on the road, which create more particulates and burn fuel nefficiently. Two-stroke engines, which emit hydrocarbons and smoke at higher rates than four-strokes, are particularly bad.

Vehicles are concentrated in a few large cities where many people live and move in the open, exposing themselves to more automotive pollutants.

Some observers warn that unless Delhi moves rapidly to extremely clean fuels which go beyond even Euro IV standards like CNG or ultra-low sulfur diesel with particulate traps, there is no way that the people of Delhi or other major Indian metropolitan areas that follow Delhi's lead - Pune, Kanpur or Hyderabad - will ever get even somewhat cleaner air.

Much of Delhi's public transport fleet is already on CNG, and campaigners against diesel believe it is possible to encourage the remaining segment of the city commercial fleet to move to CNG. They suggest that higher sales taxes on diesel fuel could help check the rapidly rising numbers of diesel passenger cars in the city.

"It will be extremely damaging to ignore the scientific evidence from around the world on the toxic effect of the killer diesel. Recent reports from the U.S. EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] show that diesel engines emit almost 100 times more particulate matter than petrol engines," said the CSE.

Scientists in Japan have also isolated a deadly compound in diesel fumes that is the strongest carcinogen known. Diesel particulate matter has been branded as a probable human carcinogen by many international scientific organizations and regulatory agencies, including the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the World Health Organization, the U.S. EPA, and the California Air Resources Board.

Many recent studies bear out the cancer risk from diesel fumes; children and the infirm are known to be especially vulnerable.

The CSE warned that Delhi, which has earned a clean city image and worldwide recognition for its efforts to clean up its air, is "letting flawed policies" undermine its achievements and is intensifying health risks.

The environmental organization called for the elimination of the price advantage of diesel cars, and said the government should make them pay for the environmental damage they cause, enforce Euro IV standards for all vehicles from 2005, and implement an effective in-use vehicle inspection system for diesel vehicles.

CSE has argued that India cannot afford the high price of fuel, or to follow the same "material and energy-intensive" model of growth that "discharges huge quantities of waste" that has been used by the West to fuel its economic growth.

The organization warns against attempts by India to "out-bid China and the rest of the world in securing access to oil and gas" - as reflected in Indian attempts to laying pipelines to Iran, importing gas from Qatar and persuading Bangladesh to sell India gas.

CSE is an independent, public interest organisation established in 1982 by Anil Agarwal, a pioneer of India's environmental movement. CSE says its main focus is to research, communicate and promote sustainable development with "equity, participation and democracy."