North India to Adopt Euro IV Standards: Understanding the European and Indian emission norms

Emission norms are a way of controlling pollution caused by automobiles and other vehicles with internal combustion engine. Starting from April 1, 2015, North India will switch to Euro IV fuel. The idea behind making this transition from Euro III to Euro IV is to control the pollution by upgrading the quality of fuel and by encouraging the automobile industry to manufacture more fuel efficient and less polluting automobiles.

You must have seen Euro III, Euro IV and Bharat Stage 1 or 2 or 3 stickers on the backside of a lot of cars. Lets read about them and get to know what these terms actually mean.

Bharat Stage Emission Standards are the Indian equivalent of the European emission standards. The government of India introduced the emission standards for the first time in 1991 for petrol vehicles and in 1992 for diesel vehicles. In the upcoming years, the government also made it mandatory for automobile manufacturers to install a "catalytic converter" in every petrol vehicle they manufacture.

In the year 2000, the Indian Government introduced Bharat Stage Emission Standards that were based on the European emission standards. These first emission norms were called Bharat Stage I. Bharat Stage I norms were based on Euro I standards.

In the year 2002, the government of India constituted a committee known as Mashelkar Committee. The role of this committee was to suggest a plan for the implementation of the European based emission norms in India. In its report, the committee suggested that future implementation of emission standards must be carried out in the major cities first and should be extended to the rest of the India gradually. The National Auto Fuel Policy was drafted on the basis of the suggestions given by the Mashelkar Committee.
Right now 13 cities have been classified as major metropolitan cities where new emission standards are introduced first. These 13 cities are New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chennai, Jamshedpur, Sholapur, Lucknow, Pune, Surat, Hyderabad, Kanpur and Agra.
Currently these 13 cities have Bharat IV emission norms while most of the rest of India is still stuck on Bharat 3 emission standards that were introduced in 2005.
The Bhart IV emission standards also addresses the pollution caused by two wheelers and mandates that all two wheelers must be installed with Evaporative Control Units that prevents the evaporation of petrol when the vehicle is parked.

• Effect of Emission Standards on The Quality of Fuel:

The introduction of stricter emission standards has resulted in better fuel quality. For example Bharat III complying fuel has sulphur content of 50mg per Kg of fuel where as Bharat IV complying fuel contains only 10Mg/Kg of sulphur content.

• Criticism of Emission Standards in India:

While in Europe, Euro V standards have already been introduced. In India, most of the country is still stuck on Bharat III standards that are based on Euro 3 norms. Some experts suggested that there was an urgent need to skip the Bharat III standards and directly adopt Bharat IV standards. But this was ignored by the government as the automotive industry was showing reluctance in taking this leap.

Another point of criticism is that in India it is not mandatory for the manufacturers to label the Carbon dioxide limits on their vehicles. Norms for controlling the carbon dioxide emissions are absent in Euro standards too but in Europe it is mandatory for manufacturers to label all the vehicles with the carbon dioxide emission limits so that the customers are aware of the pollution potential of their vehicles..