Low pollution Euro-VI fuels be to introduced by 2020: Pradhan

India will shift to Euro-VI emission compliant petrol and diesel by 2020 to cut carbon emissions, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Thursday.

"A revised auto fuel policy is in the offing which will lead to introduction of BS-VI fuels by 2020," he said here while addressing a workshop on managing carbon emissions.

"We already have BS-III, equivalent to Euro-III specifications, across the country and BS-IV in major cities, which will shortly be extended to the entire country," he said.

The minister said that instead of stepwise upgradation from BS-IV to BS-V and then from BS-V to BS-VI, the government is planning to switch over directly from BS-IV to BS-VI auto fuels by April 1, 2020.

BS-IV fuels have 50 parts per million (ppm) sulphur, while BS-V and BS-VI grade fuel will have 10 ppm sulphur.

"We have decided to reduce carbon emissions across the entire value chain. We will try to increase efficiency and reduce flaring and venting in the upstream segment," Pradhan said.

BS-IV fuels are currently available in northern India covering Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, parts of Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh. The rest of the country has BS-III grade fuel.

From April 2016, Goa, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Odisha, the union territories of Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Andaman and Nicobar will get BS-IV fuel. The rest of the country will get BS-IV fuel supplies from April 2017.

India has pledged to improve the carbon emission intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 percent by 2030, from the 2005 level and to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030, Pradhan said.

"We are also studying the feasibility of using LNG (liquefied natural gas) as a transportation fuel for inter-city movement of heavy vehicles," he added.