EPCA favours hydrogen & CNG mixed fuel, colour-coded stickers on vehicles

The Environment Pollution Control Authority told the Supreme Court today that vehicles running on hydrogen and CNG mixed fuel and having colour-coded stickers to identify polluting automobiles would help in tackling air pollution.

The EPCA told a bench comprising justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta that colour-coded stickers, as used in Paris, would be more effective then having "odd-even" vehicle rotation scheme in Delhi and it would also help in identifying older vehicles.

Advocate Aparajita Singh, assisting the court as an amicus curiae, said there should be different coloured stickers for petrol and diesel vehicles according to the EPCA suggestions.

The counsel appearing for Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) termed this a "good idea" and said even the Centre has proposed to issue green number plates for electric vehicles.

Asked by the bench about the cost of having these stickers and the agency responsible for implementing the project, EPCA said it would hold deliberations with the concerned authorities and would get back to the court.

"We have problem with diesel vehicles and if the colour-coded stickers would be there, it would help in identifying the polluting vehicles," the amicus curiae said.

Regarding hydrogen and CNG mixed fuel, the amicus curiae said that it was a cleaner fuel compared to CNG, and Indian Oil Corporation has the conversion machine for this.

"We already have CNG network in the city and if we bring the mixture of hydrogen and CNG, it would be much better," EPCA said.

SIAM's counsel told the court that bus manufacturers would work on having buses running on mixture of hydrogen and CNG fuel.

The bench asked the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas as well as Indian Oil Corporation to respond to the EPCA suggestions.

The bench had suggested that the possibility of using hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles, which are of hybrid nature and considered cost-effective compared to CNG or electric vehicles, should also be explored.

The amicus curiae had told the bench that the use of colour-coded system would help in having graded fuel for vehicles depending upon the pollution emitted.

The petition has raised the issue of air pollution in Delhi-NCR.