[sustran] fwd: Delhi news from CSE India

[SUSTRAN Resource Centre]

Some transport-relevant news from CSE India. Includes comments on the Delhi
bus events of  recent weeks.

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From: "webadmin" <webadmin at cseindia.org>
Organization: Centre for Science and Environment
To: <CSE-LIST at cse.org>
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 13:08:13 +530
Subject: What's new at CSE, India

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What's new at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi, 
India


A cycle rally of hundreds of school children from Delhi culminated at the 
Prime Minister's Residence on Earth Day, April 22nd as a part of CSE's 
Right to Clean Air campaign.

On behalf of all the children of India, a delegation of 22 children 
presented the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India , Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, 
a Children's Manifesto on Clean Air , that expressed their concerns on the 
growing problem of air pollution in Indian cities and their right to clean 
air. This manifesto was an appeal from children for a more secure and 
sustainable future. It drew the attention of government and the automobile 
manufacturers to the serious issue of deteriorating air quality in towns 
and cities of India. A gallery of pictures at 

http://www.oneworld.org/cse/html/earthday/cleanair.htm
-------------------------------------------------

.................


A message from the Director, Anil Agarwal:

Hammer of Thor

WHEN it comes to pollution control, it is only the hammer of the 
honourable judges of the Supreme Court (SC) that seems to push the 
government to do anything. Without creating a crisis, first for the auto 
industry last year and now for the government, it seems that no action 
gets taken. Almost, as if the government has abdicated its 
responsibilities for pollution control and public health.

The manner in which both the state and Central governments wasted the long 
lead time of 22 months, that the SC had given them is truly a murky story 
of how politicians and bureaucrats consistently give in to industrial 
lobbies. The SC order dates back to July 1998 with a clear deadline - to 
convert all eight-year-old buses (both private and of the Delhi Transport 
Corporation (DTC) to compressed natural gas (CNG). Forget public interest. 
It is also sad that the media has failed to draw public attention to the 
totally non-cooperative and obstructionist role that the Central 
government has played in this entire drama. The Court, too, unfortunately, 
tends to overlook the latter's role because the prime responsibility for 
carrying out the Court's instructions rightly lie with the state 
government.

The diesel lobby has long been opposing the Court's order to get buses 
converted to CNG presumably because it means entering a new line of 
technology and the 'cascade effect' of SC orders for Delhi which then get 
endorsed by the High Courts for other metros. Both DTC officials and 
officials of certain companies which manufacture buses have been saying 
for long that the CNG conversion option is too expensive and that buses 
with Euro II emissions standards running on 0.05 per cent sulphur diesel 
should be considered clean enough for Delhi. DTC wasted away the time 
given to it without doing anything and then filed an affidavit a few days 
before the deadline asking for a five-year extension in the hope that the 
Court would agree the Euro II diesel option, which the DTC actually 
proposed in its affidavit. The collusion between the DTC and the diesel 
lobby could not be more self-evident. The argument in favour of moving to 
CNG is very simple. The biggest pollutant in Delhi's air is small 
particulates and diesel buses contribute to as much as 20-25 per cent of 
all particulate pollution from vehicles. Moving buses to CNG that has 
negligible particulate emissions, would mean a drastic reduction in this 
pollutant.

The diesel lobby's influence has been so powerful with the Delhi 
government that it has not been able to take any decision on another SC 
order of July 1998 which instructs it to augment its bus fleet to 10,000 
by April 1, 2001. As the court had also ordered that all buses in Delhi 
must run on CNG by April 1, 2001, the implication of the court orders was 
clear. The Delhi government had to ensure that all new buses it ordered 
had to be running on CNG. It would be an absolute waste of money to order 
diesel buses and then convert them to CNG within a year or so. But the 
state government could not come to grips with the matter lost in its 
dilemma whether it should order diesel or CNG buses. At the least, the 
state government could have notified private bus operators that all eight-
year old buses have to run on CNG by April 1, 2000, but this much too was 
not done. What we see today is the result of a total disregard for court 
orders and amicus curiae Harish Salve rightly pointed out in court that 
the DTC affidavit amounts to a 'contempt of court'.

Central government agencies have also tried their best to be as 
obstructionist as possible. Let us begin with the ministry of petroleum. 
It was only around this time last year that the ministry had told the SC 
that it is not possible for it to supply any better than diesel with 0.25 
per cent sulphur content. And yet within a year the ministry has 
backtracked and minister Ram Naik is proudly taking out public 
advertisements that both petrol and diesel with 0.05 per cent sulphur 
content will be supplied from April 1, 2000. How does a ministry change 
its mind so quickly? All this has happened not just because of the growing 
pressure from the SC now that only Euro II cars are to be allowed from 
April 1, 2000 a court order in improvement in fuel quality was becoming 
inevitable. But the real pressure came with the entry of the private 
sector Reliance refineries who are waiting to capture the large Delhi 
market by offering the desired quality of fuel. A move which put the cat 
amongst the coy public sector pigeons.

Improvements in both petrol and diesel quality are vital for controlling 
emissions. In 1996, the SC had ordered that all new petrol cars must have 
cat convertors and asked for the introduction of unleaded petrol. But 
sulphur in petrol also destroys the catalyst. A cat convertor is supposed 
to last for 80,000 km but no manufacturer knows whether this is true or 
not. This is because of the poor fuel quality supplied to Indian 
consumers, making a mockery of SC orders. In the case of diesel, even if 
particulate pollution from all buses is reduced to negligible levels by 
moving them to CNG, there will still be many uses of diesel. Goods 
vehicles are heavy polluters and here the CNG option is limited because of 
the large volume of inter-state traffic.

Given the extremely fractured state of the country's environmental 
governance, the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF) has no 
powers to set standards for fuel quality from the pollution point of view. 
In fact, even the emissions standards for vehicles are notified by the 
ministry of surface transport (MOST) and not by the MEF. The latter is a 
mere adviser. Since there were no standards for CNG buses, it was MOST 
that had to take the lead in this. But the ministry did nothing on its own 
despite the SC orders till almost a year had gone by taking the specious 
plea that the state government had not asked it to do so. Meanwhile, the 
Indian Institute of Petroleum refused to certify that a converted bus was 
not meeting the standard because no standards had been specified nor was 
the certification procedure. Instead of clarifying the certification 
procedure fast, MOST calmly took the position that the certification of 
converted buses was a special matter, different from the certification 
process for new vehicles, even though a few CNG buses were already running 
in Mumbai. Why couldn't the same procedure be applied to the buses for 
Delhi? MOST merely set up a committee to look into the matter with no 
deadline totally oblivious of the SC deadline. This obviously created 
problems and delays for the Delhi government.

It became clear a few weeks ago where the loyalties of MOST have been all 
the time when it publicly stated that the CNG option is too expensive and 
the option of improved diesel buses should not be overlooked. Sure, cost 
is important, but haven't auto manufacturers also invested a lot to 
improve their vehicles to Euro II standards? The Western experience 
clearly shows that a clean environment does not come together with fancy 
modern technology without paying a cost or else people have to be prepared 
to pay the cost of death and illness in the form of doctor's fees, costs 
of medicines and hospital charges. But protecting the environment is not 
MOST responsibility so why should it care and it is not under the 
spotlight of the SC either.

In an affidavit, filed before the SC, the ministry says, that it has 
discussed the recommendations of the Environment Pollution Control 
Authority (EPCA), for the National Capital Region, to ban private diesel 
cars in order to stop new sources of particulate pollution with MOST and 
the ministry of industry and disagrees with it. The EPCA is an agency of 
the ministry itself but set up under the orders of the SC and which 
regularly provides advice to the court. The reason cited for disagreement 
is that no vehicle that meets the specified emissions standards can be 
banned. For the MEF to disregard environmental concerns and hide behind a 
legal provision is outrageous. Does the ministry have any information to 
show that the public health effects of diesel and the actions being taking 
against its use from Tokyo to California can be disregarded?

And just how valid is its argument? After all, vehicular emissions 
standards are secondary to and derivative of air quality standards. The 
ministry itself has not come up with any action plan to give us clean air 
by controlling particulate pollution in Delhi which is its own 
responsibility. The Central Pollution Control Board has started measuring 
respirable particles (PM10) which go deep into the lungs and are a bigger 
threat to public health than all particles. Both in 1998 and 1999 winter, 
PM10 levels reached as high as 800 microgrammes per cubic meter (µg/cum) 
which are levels that we have not been able to find recorded in any city 
of the world. Whereas the standard says that it should be below 100 
µg/cum. Let the ministry take up the challenge and tell the public how 
this particulate pollution can be controlled without controlling the use 
of diesel.

Moreover, all over the world, from Zurich to California, it is recognised 
that local situations can demand stricter standards than the national 
standards. Not surprisingly, the SC is imposing stricter standards for a 
pollution hot spot like Delhi  both through stricter emissions standards 
as in the case of cars and through alternative fuels in the case of buses, 
autos and taxis. In fact, the MEF affidavit can also be read as saying 
that the SC's orders are illegal.

It is clear that several agencies of both the Central and Delhi government 
have been greatly under the influence of the diesel lobby. Even Prime 
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has contributed his little bit to this state 
of affairs through his total inaction on the pollution front despite 
evidence of serious and growing air pollution in most Indian towns and 
cities. Despite the fractured state of environmental governance, as 
described above, there have been no reports of the cabinet having 
discussed this issue in its entirety. The entire story stinks of money, 
influence and of course, lack of concern.

A strong SC has definitely increased the accountability of the Delhi 
government for air pollution but as of yet the Central government has 
escaped any accountability. 

- Anil Agarwal


Visit our website at www.cseindia.org or www.oneworld.org/cse and check 
out what's new. Our website carries our science and environment 
fortnightly Down To Earth, a weekly Feature Service of articles on 
environment and a daily environment news flash by subject categories. We 
also give regular updates on all of our campaigns on topics like vehicular 
pollution, climate change, biodiversity, water resources, wildlife, 
forests etc. Our online library of books, journals, images and videos is 
searchable through a thesaurus of environmental keywords at 
http://data.cseindia.org 

We are also looking for reciprocal linking to other websites in this area. 
Let us know your website address and we would be happy to link to you. 
Please feel 
free to forward this message to other interested individuals. 

.............

Usha Sekhar 
Website Unit 
Centre for Science and Environment 




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