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INDIAN TO SWITCH TO CLEANEST PETROL, DIESEL , A GREAT MOVE, WILL CURB POLLUTION LEVEL

Young Bites. Dated: 2/20/2020 10:49:58 AM

Soot, dust, ozone, and sulfur oxides are a growing threat for billions of people around the world. The World Health Organization reported that 93 percent of all children in the world breathe air with pollution levels that exceed their guidelines. A whopping nine in 10 people on Earth breathe highly polluted air, and more than 80 percent of urban dwellers have to endure outdoor pollution that exceeds health standards, according to the WHO’s World Global Ambient Air Quality Database. But even among countries gasping for breath, India stands out for air that is consistently, epically terrible. When we look at the database’s ranking of particulate pollution in cities, most of the cities with the highest levels are located in India. But now in order to overcome this problem, India will join the select league of nations using petrol and diesel containing just 10 parts per million of sulphur as it looks to cut vehicular emissions that are said to be one of the reasons for the choking pollution in major cities. India will switch to the world's cleanest petrol and diesel from April 1 as it leapfrogs straight to Euro-VI emission compliant fuels from Euro-IV grades now - a feat achieved in just three years and not seen in any of the large economies around the globe. Almost all refineries began producing ultra-low sulphur BS-VI (equivalent to Euro-VI grade) petrol and diesel by the end of 2019 and oil companies have now undertaken the tedious task of replacing every drop of fuel in the country with the new one. From storage depots, the fuel has started travelling to petrol pumps and in the next few weeks all of them will only have BS-VI grade petrol and diesel. India adopted Euro-III equivalent (or Bharat Stage-III) fuel with a sulphur content of 350 ppm in 2010 and then took seven years to move to BS-IV that had a sulphur content of 50 ppm. From BS-IV to BS-VI it took just three years. State-owned oil refineries spent about Rs 35,000 crore to upgrade plants that could produce ultra-low sulphur fuel. This investment is on top of Rs 60,000 crore they spent on refinery upgrades in the previous switch overs. BS-VI has a sulphur content of just 10 ppm and emission standards are as good as CNG. Originally, Delhi and its adjoining towns were to have BS-VI fuel supplies by April 2019 and the rest of the country was to get same supplies from April 2020. But oil marketing companies switched over to supply of BS-VI grade fuels in the national capital territory of Delhi on April 1, 2018. The supply of BS-VI fuels was further extended to four contiguous districts of Rajasthan and eight of Uttar Pradesh in the National Capital Region (NCR) on April 1, 2019, together with the city of Agra. BS-VI grade fuels were made available in 7 districts of Haryana from October 1, 2019. New fuel will result in a reduction in NOx in BS-VI compliant vehicles by 25 per cent in petrol cars and by 70 per cent in diesel cars. Benzene limits have been reduced progressively from 5 per cent in 2000 to 1 per cent nationwide. Lead content in gasoline was removed in phases and only unleaded gasoline is being produced and sold from February 1, 2000. Sulphur reduction will reduce Particulate Matter (PM) emissions even in the in-use older generation diesel vehicles. In most of the cities in India, the pollution level is at the saturation point. Now the time will tell how effective the step is. If the pollution level decreases after the implementation of this scheme, the there is no doubt that air quality in most of the urban cities will improve.