NGT to hear plea on extending diesel vehicle ban

Green court directs states to present data on pollution, vehicles or face warrants

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) will on Tuesday hear a plea on extending the ban on registration of diesel vehicles above 2,000 cubic centimetre (cc) to cities across the country.

On Monday, the green court directed state governments to submit key figures related to vehicle pollution in the top 15 metropolitan cities by Tuesday or face bailable warrants issued the chief secretaries of non-responsive state. Hearing a petition seeking to extend a ban on diesel vehicles in the major population centres across the country, the green court said its past directions on the matter had not been seriously dealt with by state governments.

A Bench headed by NGT Chairperson Swatanter Kumar has directed that the latest data regarding vehicle numbers, pollution levels and populations of the cities in question be submitted to the court by Tuesday, when the case will be taken up for hearing. The NGT will take a decision on whether to impose a ban on older diesel vehicles and registration of new ones in cities including Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai.

The tribunal is reportedly looking for states’ response on cities with the worst air quality — to arrive at 15 cities where old diesel vehicles will be taken off the roads.  Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Punjab are among those states required to file their response. Kumar warned that warrants would be issued if legal counsels representing the various state governments failed to turn up at the court on Tuesday or failed to furnish the data.

The counsel for Maharashtra stated that Mumbai was the most polluted city.

The Supreme Court had in December 2015 banned the registration of new diesel cars above the capacity of 2,000cc in New Delhi. Last week, the NGT had extended this ban to Kerala, asking the state government to stop registering such diesel vehicles, except for public transport and local authority vehicles. Passing the order, the Kochi Circuit Bench of the NGT also barred all 10-year-old diesel vehicles — light and heavy — from plying on the roads of six cities in the state.

However, on Monday, the Kerala High Court temporarily stayed the ban. While it stayed the NGT order on new vehicles, it did not interfere with the one covering old ones.

The Department of Heavy Industry has opposed the plan to extend the ban, moving an application urging the tribunal not to restrict the movement or registration of diesel vehicles on cities other than Delhi. According to a statement issued by industry body Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam) in May this year, the ban on diesel-powered vehicles in the Delhi national capital region has impacted about 5,000 jobs in the automobile sector and resulted in production loss of around 11,000 units. Industry experts say about 400,000 diesel vehicles with two-litre or larger engines are sold in the country annually. According to Siam, the ban in the NCR has already resulted in a production loss of 11,000 vehicles, affecting 5,500 jobs, including at dealerships.

On the other hand, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is currently on a six-day trip to Japan, said on Monday that the current spate of ban on diesel vehicles represents a transient phase. “I think the Indian auto sector is extremely comfortably placed,” he said in Tokyo. Jaitley is scheduled to meet Suzuki Motor Chairman Osamu Suzuki on Tuesday.