Banning 10-year old diesel cars in Delhi will not be in the best interest of the customer say industry stalwarts
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Monday ordered the Delhi Road Transport Department to de-register all diesel cars which are older than 10 years.
To discuss the ramifications of this order in depth CNBC-TV18's Ronojoy Banerjee spoke to two eminent guests Vikram Kirloskar, vice chairman, Toyota Kirloskar Motor and BVR Subbu, former CEO, Hyundai India.
Subbu thinks the order is misplaced and the consumers' interest has not been taken into account at all. According to him, the NGT does not realise that vehicles do not cause pollution but engines do. So the customers should have been given an opportunity to convert or upgrade their engines to comply with emission norms.
He said there are some people who maintain their vehicles very nicely and it could also be that a 10-year vehicle may have run lesser kilometres than say a 7-year vehicle. So in that case, who is emitting more pollution is the question. Therefore, the yardstick should not have been based on the number of years the vehicle has spent on the road but by the number of kilometres on the road.
Agreeing with Subbu, Kirloskar says the order should have been emission-based. It should have thought about how it would impact the common man. Kirloskar says it would have been better if the NGT would have come out with a step-by-step ban because policing this kind of order is very difficult. It should have started with Bharat Stage Zero, then stage I, after a few months stage II and after a year maybe stage III, which would have been logical.
When asked if the company would look at discontinuing diesel engines, Kirloskar said no, in fact they would continue manufacturing high tech diesel engines because the Bharat Stage VI has the capacity to reduce carbon emission to an acceptable level and one needs diesel to get the carbon footprint down.
To read the complete interview, go to moneycontrol.com
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