In a major step to check vehicular pollution, the Centre on Wednesday decided to directly implement Bharat Stage (BS) VI by April 2020, and skip BS-V altogether.
In a major step to check vehicular pollution, the Centre on Wednesday decided to directly implement Bharat Stage (BS) VI by April 2020, and skip BS-V altogether.
As of now, BS-IV is being implemented in some cities, and will be made the norm across India by April 2017.
This was decided at a meeting chaired by road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari, attended by heavy industries minister Anant Geete, minister of state for environment Prakash Javadekar and MoS petroleum Dharmendra Pradhan.
It comes at a time when the Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi has started implementing the “odd-even” curbs for two weeks to restrict the use of private cars to check rising pollution in the nation’s capital.
The Centre will soon issue a notification on this. The petroleum ministry has promised to make BS-VI fuel available across India by April 1, 2020.
“The government decided to leapfrog from BS-IV to BS-VI directly by April 1, 2020. We decided to skip BS-V emission norms. It is a bold step (showing) commitment to the environment,” the transport minister said.
