The Hindu Business Line : `Scrapping of vehicles never an issue in combating auto pollution'

SCRAPPING of vehicles was never thought of as a means of controlling auto pollution, the West Bengal Director of Public Vehicles Department and Joint Secretary, State Transport Department, Mr H. Mohan said.

Addressing a workshop on Bharat II: Reality and Illusions, he said that scrapping of vehicles can never be ordered without causing major problems.

"Scrapping was never an issue at any forum, he said categorically", adding that any vehicle would be allowed to run irrespective of its age as long as it conformed to the emission standards stipulated by the Centre. These take effect from October 2. No age limit has been fixed for the running vehicles by the order, he said.

He said that the Calcutta High Court observed in its judgement on auto emission norms, delivered earlier this week that checking of tail pipe norms was in order as long as the testing centres are up to-the mark.

Mr Mohan said that the upgradation of these centres was now on the anvil, under which the institutions giving `pollution-under-control' certificates would have to modernise their devices. The Government was also streamlining the process by computerising the entire process, so that by October all the data was available with the Government in a centralised manner.

The PVD Director also said that the type of testing would be linked with the age of the vehicle and a regular maintenance would have to be undertaken by the owner/user to ensure that the vehicle was conforming to the PUC certificate given to it.

The West Bengal Transport Minister, Mr S. Chakraborty, said that he was not too worried by the issues thrown up in the automobile sector due to the tail pipe emissions norms, which have to be conformed by October.

"These were a part of the problems of an urban society and will be solved in due course". He said that vehicle population in India had shot up from six lakhs in 1960 to 6.5 crores in 2004 and the country had a higher vehicle population than China now".

He also said that the State Government buses could be run on CNG, subject to its availability.

Professor Prabir Kumar Bose of Jadavpur University said that although compressed natural gas lowered the `visible' pollution caused by the presence (in air) of suspended particulate matter in vehicular emissions, the clear smoke emitted by vehicles running on CNG contained by a more dangerous pollutant — respiratory particulate matter — which was minute and penetrated directly into our lungs. He said that ultra low sulphur diesel was a better fuel option.

Former member of the Union Government's expert committee on environment Dr S. Chatterjee argued that a lot of the present action against automobile owners was illegal, as it was not provided for in the Environment Protection Act.

There was no representation from the State pollution control department at the workshop, which was organised by the Bharat Chamber of Commerce. The BCC Secretary, Ms Keka Sarma, said that the WBPCB chief was preoccupied with other matters.

More Stories on : Environment | Roadways | Other States

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page