No diesel vehicles for govt use in Delhi: NGT

However, if the directive is implemented then they expect an impact on all passenger car manufacturers as roughly 35-40 percent of total industry volumes is in the diesel segment. Commercial vehicles and bus segments might not see much impact, they said. Below is the verbatim transcript of Vinod Dasari and Balendu Shekhar’s interview with Reema Tendulkar, Sonia Shenoy and Ronojoy Banerjee on CNBC-TV18.Reema: As of now this is a directive only for government vehicles in Delhi. Your initial reactions to it and do you see this order extending to private vehicles as well because that is the big concern?Dasari: I have two comments on this, firstly I think everybody is passing judgment on autos whether it is the government saying odd even or National Green Tribunal (NGT) saying no diesel vehicles or other saying that we should just simply put Euro 6 from next year or so on, most of these suggestions are infeasible. However, nevertheless, if there is an order it will be met by auto companies; that goes without saying. My view on this particular thing is that already all the buses and commercial vehicles that are sold to the government on Delhi are sold as CNG. I don’t know about the cars but there will be many cars which are petrol and many which will be diesel so those will probably get affected. My view is that I don’t think we should only focus on cars, we can try various things on cars and auto industry in India has been the fastest to adopt any emission regulations, faster than any country in the world. In fact we have proactively offered to go faster on BF5 and BF6 as soon as the fuel starts to become available. Last comment I want to make on this is that just two days ago IIT Delhi had done a study which showed that less than 10 percent of the pollution is coming from the cars. So, while majority of the pollution is coming from wood burning stoves or dirt in the air, only curbing this one, the cars will not produce the smog in Delhi. Sonia: I just wanted to ask you what percentage of Ashok Leyland’s truck portfolio comes from diesel trucks that are sold to central and state governments? Dasari: Hardly, negligible. Even if we sell them in Delhi they are all CNG. Sonia: You are saying that for most of the truck markers like yourself there won’t be any impact at all because of this news flow? Dasari: First of all there is hardly any purchase of trucks by government. Whatever buses they procure are all CNG anyway. Sonia: So for Ashok Leyland there will not be any impact at all? Dasari: For that matter for any commercial vehicle maker. Sonia: For passenger vehicles what percentage of the total industry sales comes from diesel cars? Dasari: I would not know and that too specifically in Delhi I don’t know but even if it is they can switch to petrol; that is the only impact that will be there.Ronojoy: NGT also gave three reasons primarily for pollution, vehicular pollution is one but they also spoke about garbage burning and building material. So, apart from just vehicular pollution has the NGT said anything to the government in terms of the other two key reasons for pollution in the city?Balendu: In Vardhaman Kaushik case court has already taken a view that primarily there are three reasons. Number one is vehicular pollution, two is garbage burning and third is building material. So, about that garbage burning, NGT had given power to impose Rs 5,000 as a chalan to those people whosoever do such activities. In that regard all corporations have given their status report like in this matter I also defend East Municipal Corporation of Delhi. So, in the territory of East Corporation we have already issued a chalan more than 100, probably 103 or 105 chalan we have already issued and have already recovered at the rate of Rs 5,000 per chalan. Similarly for stocking building material in open area, NGT had given power to impose a chalan of Rs 50,000 and in that regard as I said that on behalf of East Corporation, we gave our figure that we have already issued such chalan more than 230-240 such chalan merely East Corporation has issued and each chalan costs at least Rs 50,000. So, every department is trying their best to comply.