Published on March 19, 2014
Many cities in India are suffering from some of the worst air quality in the world. The smog resulting from use of cheap diesel is costing the country 1.1 trillion rupees in shortened life spans of productive members of the urban population per year.
India subsidizes fuel sales equivalent to $15 billion every year, promoting diesel vehicles that emit exhaust gases with 10 times the carcinogenic particles found in gasoline exhausts. As a result the national capital’s air on average last year contained double the toxic particles per cubic meter that was reported in Beijing. Such high levels of toxic particles can cause asthma, respiratory diseases, lung cancer and heart attacks.
According to a report, diesel passenger vehicles accounted for nearly 49 per cent of new cars sold in 2013. The increase in diesel vehicles is primarily because the fuel is sold at a 24 per cent discount to gasoline. Also, diesel provides greater mileage than gasoline, which makes it economically viable.
In China, on the other hand, a mere 0.5 per cent of new passenger cars run on diesel. China is all set to increase domestic natural gas supply in order to reduce air pollution.
Diesel engines release a pollutant known as PM2.5. These particles are minute and thus penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the blood stream.
PM2.5 has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the World Health Organization. Prolonged exposure to this pollutant can cause lung cancer, bladder cancer, complications in pregnancy, heart failure, asthma attacks, and strokes.
The annual average concentration of PM2.5 in New Delhi in the previous year was 173 micrograms per cubic meter, compared with 89.5 micrograms in Beijing. WHO recommended threshold for average annual exposure is 10 micrograms. These figures prove that Indians are at a huge risk and something needs to be done immediately.
Diesel generators, cooking fuel and coal-fired power plants also produce fine particulate matter. But the major source of air pollution is the increasing number of vehicles in our country.
In India, the emission standards the diesel fleet are extremely outdated. However, even stringent laws are unlikely to bring about any change.
Carmakers like Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, General Motors Co., etc have launched new diesel models since 2010.
In Europe, diesel exhaust systems have to have equipment to scrub exhaust gases of lethal particle emissions. The same cannot be said for diesel systems manufactured in India. Oil refineries in the country produce diesel using sulphur which has the ability to ruin the exhaust-scrubbing equipment.
Once India improves emission standards as well as fuel quality, the automobile industry will also support installing exhaust technologies. “A move to current European standards for the fuel would reduce emissions by as much as 80 percent from present levels,” said C.V. Raman, executive director, engineering at Maruti Suzuki.
Providing incentives to improve fuel quality could bring about drastic changes. State-run oil refiners like HPCL, IOC and BPCL, do not consider investing in technology to reduce sulphur levels in fuel as they lose money on every gallon of diesel sold.
The costs of upgrading our refineries are also extremely high. Upgrading a refinery to produce Euro 5 equivalent fuel is likely to cost 25 billion rupees. Oil refiners believe that increasing diesel prices would bring down the demand; however, it is highly unlikely that the government would stop subsidizing diesel during an election year.
