Pollution certificates compromised at many places

On October 2, India committed to reducing about 35 per cent of its emissions in the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). While the INDC’s are at an aggregate level, it has been estimated that cities contribute to about 70 per cent of global greenhouse gases.

A World Resources Institute study to evaluate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Bengaluru using the Global Protocol for Community-scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC) for three major emission sectors - transport, energy and waste - found that for the total Scope 1 emission in the City is around 3.4 million tonnes of CO2, the total Scope 2 emission in the City is around 9.2 million tonnes of CO2 and the total scope 3 emissions is 2.6 million tonnes of CO2. The study also found that in the case of Scope 1 emissions, transport accounts for 55 per cent of total emissions in the City.

As proven in the recent Volkswagen scandal, as the vehicle technology gets complex, measuring emission becomes even more complicated. The German auto giant is being charged with a penalty of $ 86 billion to deal with the fallout of its emission cheating software in its diesel cars.

Taking a closer look in several Indian cases reveals that Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificates are also compromised in many places though the measurement is relatively simpler. It has often been reported that these PUC centres are inadequately staffed and use pirated software that manipulate the emission data. Many such centres don’t follow test procedures correctly and have been seen flouting basic norms around calibrating instruments.

The talk on emission mostly revolves around vehicles and technology but clean fuel is a big deterrent to vehicles because unless we get clean fuel, the technology will not work. The other important issue is the role of the agencies in the transport sector. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MRTH) is the nodal ministry for regulation of the automotive sector, but there are other ministries and organisations that are involved, including the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Ministry of Urban Development, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and organisation like BIS, ARAI, VRDE, CIRT etc., which play a significant role.

Multiplicity of agencies can also create problem and therefore, the MRTH has proposed setting up a independent regulator, the Vehicle Regulation and Road Safety Authority of India, in the draft Road Transport and Safety Bill. The agency will look into the design, regulation and monitoring of motor vehicles both from road safety as well as the emissions perspective.

Fitness test

The bill also proposes a fitness test for vehicles in the private sector, essentially because there are about 20 lakh commercial vehicles in Maharashtra alone and as per law, these vehicles need to obtain a fitness certificate every year after the second year. However, the state has the capacity to test only around four lakh vehicles per year and hence 75 per cent of the vehicles cannot undergo a fitness test.

In its report on the National Auto Fuel Policy, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Gas recommended that in order to achieve the unified fuel norm, BS-IV quality of fuel standard should be made available across the country by 2017.  The committee also recommended the implementation of the BS-VI quality of fuel standard by 2020 and recommended that all refineries in the country should be upgraded to produce BS-IV quality of fuel.

Not only the Central government, but states and cities, too, are taking this issue seriously.

For example, the Delhi government has already started working on linking data from all PUC centres in the city to a central server on a real time basis so as to avoid any tempering or manipulating of data while undertaking PUC certificate tests.

Similarly, the Gurgaon Police and Gurgaon administration, with support from Nasscom, Embarq India and other organisations, have started the “Car Free Day” campaign where people are asked to voluntarily give up their personal vehicles and to either walk, cycle or use public transport.

The campaign has seen a 25-30 per cent decline in motorised traffic which is a significant decrease in PM 2.5 levels but with 100 per cent attendance. As per the WHO data, 13 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in India and therefore, it is time for the country to gets its act right. India is only 1/3rd urbanised and which means that our cities will expand and new cities will be created. This gives us a unique opportunity to plan things right so that we are not locked-in tomorrow.

(The writer is Director (Transport), Embarq – WRI India)