Need curbs on the killer fuel,diesel : Environmentalists
Reason, the Supreme Court asked for the government's view on a proposal to tax diesel cars at the rate of 25% as a possible means of curbing Delhi's pollution. Carmakers oppose the proposal insisting diesel isn't used just to run cars. Generator sets, pumps to irrigate fields use diesel. Industrial pollution and the construction boom play a role.
Environmentalists agree there are multiple sources of diesel emissions and all need to be tackled. But, they say, private diesel cars are a major source. The rise in PM10 and NOx levels corresponds with the growth of diesel vehicles in Delhi. The share of diesel vehicles in the Capital's car sales has risen from 4-5 % in 2000 to almost 60% today, driven by the widening petrol-diesel price gap.
But as the number of private diesel vehicles has grown, so has the myth that modern diesel technology has made the fuel clean. Experts say that's hardly true in India. "The BharatIV norms are in force in 20 cities (including Delhi). These are 12 years behind Europe's current norms," Anumita Roychowdhury, who tracks air pollution at the Centre for Science and Environment, says. She has a point. NOx emission values of diesel in Bharat IV remain almost three times higher than that of petrol. Diesel norms allow significant amounts of PM while these emissions are close to zero in petrol. That apart, diesel fumes contain another class of carcinogens called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
Earlier this year, WHO reclassified diesel exhaust as a class 1 carcinogen, placing it in the same toxic bracket as tobacco smoke. A recent AIIMS study found growing incidence of lung cancer among non-smokers in Delhi. "Exposure to diesel exhaust fumes certainly appears to be one of the factors behind this rise," Dr Randeep Guleria, professor and HoD, pulmonary medicine at AIIMS, said.
Seen in this light, the galloping sales of diesel cars is a public health hazard that must be checked with legal disincentives. The growing demand for diesel has also meant mounting losses for oil companies. "It's immoral of the auto industry to create demand for a fuel that makes oil refineries bleed and our lungs explode," said CSE chief Sunita Narain, arguing that diesel was always meant to be a fuel for public utilities.
Narain said a green tax on private diesel vehicles would not only be in public interest, but should've been imposed years ago. "We would also support an annual tax on diesel cars which should be the equivalent of the cost difference between petrol and diesel, plus a little extra as disincentive," she added. While both petrol and diesel vehicles pollute, going with the lesser evil may prove to be less costly for India in the long run.