NEW DELHI: India’s oil marketing companies are all set for the country’s jump into the BS-VI emissions regime come April 1 this year, according to the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) chairman Sanjiv Singh.
The country will be the first major economy to make the jump from Bharat Stage (BS) IV (equivalent to Euro-IV) to BS-VI in just three years, completely leap-frogging BS-V.
“We are absolutely on track for supplying BS-VI fuel from April 1. Almost all refineries have begun supplying BS-VI fuel and the same has reached storage depots across the country,” Singh said.
This inventory of cleaner fuel is now travelling to petrol pumps and all IOCL petrol pumps will only have BS-VI grade petrol and diesel within the next few weeks, he added.
India had adopted Euro-III equivalent (BS-III) fuel with a sulphur content of 350 parts per million (ppm) in 2010 and then took seven years to move to BS-IV with a sulphur content of 50 ppm. BS-VI has a sulphur content of just 10 ppm, with emission rates as good as CNG alternatives.
“It was a conscious decision to leapfrog to BS-VI, as first upgrading to BS-V and then shifting to BS-VI would have prolonged the journey to four to six years..,” he pointed out.