While the final timeline is a more than a year away, Delhi, the national capital has started to get BS-VI compliant fuel. Fuel pumps in Delhi have started making BS-VI compliant petrol and diesel fuel available to customers at no extra cost. The deadline for this change was in April 2020, but seems like oil companies have jumped the gun.
The Supreme Court however is suggesting that BS-VI fuel should be made available sooner than 2020, to reduce pollution.
The new grade petrol and diesel which is BS-VI compliant will help reduce the NOx (Nitrogen Oxide), CO (Carbon Monoxide), HC (Hydrocarbon) & PM (Particulate Emissions) emissions. Oil companies were first shocked when BS-V compliance was skipped completely and BS-VI was announced for 2020. However, seems like companies have found a solution to actually supply fuel much ahead of the timeline.
The BS-VI fuel has lower sulphur content, which accounts for 50 ppm in BV-IV fuel but in the new BS-VI fuel, it stands at just 10 ppm. With lower sulphur content, the fuel will burn cleaner and reduce the emissions, nearly 50% reduced emissions compared to BS-IV fuel.
So far, only Mercedes-Benz has launched a BS-VI ready car in India, the Mercedes-Benz S 350 d.
Also, is this the real reason for the all-time high price of petrol and diesel in India as of today?