The Road Transport and Highways Ministry is expected to take a call tomorrow on the timeline for adoption of stricter emission standards, according to sources.
A meeting of an inter-ministerial group, including representatives of ministries of road transport and highways, petroleum, heavy industries and environment, held today could not come to a consensus. Road Transport and Highways Secretary Vijay Chhibber chaired the meeting.
"The Road Transport and Highways Ministry will take a final call on implementing BS-V and BS-VI norms for vehicles by tomorrow. The BS-V implementation is likely to be from 2020," an official source said.
However, according to the roadmap earlier laid down by the Auto Fuel Policy, BS-V norms were to implemented from April 1, 2022 and BS-VI from April 1, 2024.
According to sources, the road transport and highways ministry was of the view that the roll out the BS-V norms must start from 2019 but petroleum ministry expressed inability to comply with the deadline of 2019, sources said.
"The Petroleum Ministry officials said they would be in a position to supply BS-V compliant fuel by 2022 only," a source said.
The Ministry of Heavy Industries wanted BS-V norms to be implemented by 2020, they added.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) suggested that BS-V norms should be skipped and and a "lenient timeline" should be given to implement BS-VI norms, they added.
However, automobile industry body SIAM has been opposing skipping of BS-V and jumping to BS-VI, saying it is not technically feasible.