A final decision on the fuel efficiency norms for cars has been laid at the doorstep of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. This fructuous issue has seen much wrangling between the automobile industry, the Bureau of Energy Efficiency and experts outside the government.
BEE head Ajay Mathur said, “We are close to finalisation. There are a number of parties involved and we want to ensure that what we do fuses the interests of the different stakeholders.”
Dr Mathur refuses to hazard a guess as to when the fuel efficiency norms will be finalised, but the PMO sources maintain that the government is keen that these four-year-old differences get ironed out so that mandatory labelling of cars gets kickstarted from 2015.
Society of Indian Automobile Manufact-urers director general Vishnu Mathur claims the auto industry has accepted the specific proposals made by BEE in 2011. “We too are awaiting a formal notification because we are in favour of increasing fuel efficiency in our industry,” he said.
Dr Mathur said, “We are already disclosing the fuel efficiency of each car voluntarily and are working closely with the government to rationalise the norms.” The government plans to start by giving star ratings to passenger cars and then move to other vehicles. Dr Ajay Mathur, however, pointed out that the norms will be represented in kilometers/litre of fuel. The basis of the weight of a vehicle would help classify them under different levels of fuel efficiency.
Car companies will submit reports of fuel efficiency on their models to the government based on their weight and classification to help government arrive at their average fuel economy. This will give an advantage to lighter vehicles.
Centre for Science and Environment had strongly criticised the earlier proposed fuel economy standards. Giving a list of alternative suggestions, Anumita Roychowdhury, CSE’s executive director-research, said “minimum standards for the fuel economy labelling programme need to be set and BEE needs to specify a three year period for revision and upgradation of the labelling to reflect the acutal changes in the markets”. Ms Chowdhury added that unless the BEE did not change its proposed standard norm, India would slide behind all major car producing countries, including China and the US by 2020.
It is for this reason that Dr Mathur is keen that an early decision be taken. “The PMO is our immediate boss and we hope they and the Prime Minister take a call at the earliest,” he insisted.