State ‘misled’ Centre on vehicle pollution norms

Chandigarh, April 16

Haryana seems to have misled the Centre over registration of the BS-IV compliant vehicles in 11 districts of the states falling in the NCR during the recent meeting of the environment ministers in New Delhi.

This assertion was made by the Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training in a letter to Prakash Javadekar, Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.

“It seems the Haryana Government has taken the Centre, National Green Tribunal (NGT) and general public for a ride by stating at the April 13 meeting of environment ministers that it will now register only BS-IV norm vehicles in the NCR,” SP Singh, foundation coordinator, said in the letter.

It to be recalled that w. e. f. April 1, 2010, the vehicular emission norms notification under Central Motor Vehicle Rules (CMVR), 1989, of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) mandated that 13 cities, including the NCR, will register BS-IV compliant vehicles and rest of the country would upgrade to BS -III norms from the existing BS-II.

The NGT of Delhi in the NCR started the registration of BS-IV vehicles with effect from April 1, 2010, the letter said. It was stated that Haryana had failed to implement the BS-IV norms and was now taking credit for the registration of vehicles under new norms after five years.

The letter also said in order to improve air quality in the NCR, the Centre had issued notification on February 23, 2012, which mandated that trucks registered in the NCR and having national permit could operate to book and deliver cargo within two points of the NCR if they conform to BS-IV norms under Rule 15 of the CMVR. However, 99 per cent of such trucks registered in the NCR with national permit are non-BS-IV. —TNS