The Supreme Court on Wednesday said no Bharat Stage IV vehicle would be sold in the country from April 1, 2020, PTI reported. This comes months after the Centre announced that the sale and manufacture of Bharat Stage VI non-compliant vehicles will not be allowed from that day.
Bharat Stage emission standards regulate the output of air pollutants from vehicle engines. The higher the Bharat Stage category, the less polluting the vehicle. The country has followed the Bharat Stage IV norms since April 2017, and is scheduled to switch to Bharat Stage VI in April 2020.
A three judge bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur said the need of the hour was to move to a cleaner fuel.
According to the Auto Fuel Policy, Bharat Stage IV was to be adopted by the country by 2017, Bharat Stage V by 2020, and Bharat Stage VI by 2024. In January 2016, soon after the Paris climate change conference, the government decided to skip Bharat Stage V norms, and move straight to the stage VI norms four years ahead of schedule.
The government has already invested Rs 28,000 crore for the upgrade to the cleaner fuel. In April, Delhi became the first city in the country to upgrade to Bharat Stage VI norms for cleaner fuel.
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