India to opt for Bharat Stage-VI fuel: Govt

In a bid to curb vehicular pollution, India has decided to skip Bharat Stage-V and will go straight from Bharat -IV complaint petrol and diesel to Bharat Stage -VI fuel by 2020.

“We are not going for Bharat Stage V (or Euro-V) petrol and diesel as there is not much difference between BS-V and BS-VI (Euro-VI) fuel. We will bring BS-VI fuel by 2020,” Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told reporters here.

India currently has BS-III, equivalent of Euro-III specifications, across the country and BS-IV in major cities. “BS-IV will be supplied in most big cities by April 2016 and all over the country from April 2017,” he said.

“From BS-IV we will directly go to BS-VI,” he said. “We don’t see a need for refineries to first invest in upgrading fuel quality to BS-V and then again invest to upgrade to BS-VI.” Oil refineries will need to invest Rs 80,000 crore in upgrading petrol and diesel quality to meet cleaner fuel specifications by 2020.

Previously, the fuels meeting Euro-IV or Bharat Stage (BS)-IV specifications were to be supplied throughout the country by April 2017 and BS-V or Euro-V grade fuel by April 1, 2020.

But now instead of step-wise upgradation from BS-IV to BS-V and then from BS-V to BS-VI, the government plans to switch over directly from BS-IV to BS-VI auto fuels by April 1, 2020, he said.

BS-IV fuels contain 50 parts per million (ppm) sulphur, while BS-V and BS-VI grade fuel will have 10 ppm sulphur.

Currently, BS-IV auto fuels are being supplied in whole of northern India covering J&K, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, parts of Rajasthan and western UP. The rest of the country has BS-III grade fuel.

From April 1, 2016, all of Goa, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Odisha, Union Territories of Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Andaman & Nicobar will get BS-IV fuel. The rest of the country will get supplies of BS-IV fuel from April 1, 2017.
DH News Service