What are Bharat Stage Emission Standards (BSES)?

Topics Covered: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.

What are Bharat Stage Emission Standards (BSES)?

What to study?

For Prelims: BS norms and components.

For Mains: Need for and significance of these norms.

Context: The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers has said it has approached the Supreme Court seeking directions to ensure that sale and registration of BS-IV complaint is allowed till March 31, 2020.

• The move follows circulars from some State governments setting a cut-off date ranging between February 29 and March 25, 2020, for accepting registration applications for BS-IV-compliant vehicles.

About the Bharat Stage Emission Standards (BSES):

• Introduced in the year 2000.
• They are set by the Central Pollution Control Board under the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.
• Objective: To keep air pollutants emitted by the internal combustion engine of vehicles under control.
• They are based on European (EURO) emission standards.
• Bharat Stage (BS) emission norms were first brought into effect in 2000 under the head “India 2000”. This was followed by BS2 in 2001 and BS3 in 2005.
• However, the emission norms were made more stringent only with the enforcement of Bharat Stage IV (BS4). Thereafter, the Government of India skipped the implementation of BS5 in 2016 and decided to introduce Bharat Stage VI (BS6) in 2020 instead.

How does BS6 emission norms differ from BS4?

The following are the key differences between BS4 and BS6 emission norms:

Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) and Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) are being introduced with the roll-out of Bharat Stage VI norms, which were not a part of Bharat Stage IV.

Real Driving Emission (RDE) will be introduced in India for the first time with the implementation of Bharat Stage VI emission norms. It will measure a vehicle’s emission in real-time conditions against laboratory conditions.

Onboard Diagnostics (OD) has been made mandatory for all vehicles.

Sulphur and Nitrogen Oxide content: Sulphur traces in BS6 fuel is five times lower (10 ppm) as compared to sulphur traces in BS4 fuel (50 ppm). Further, nitrogen oxide level for BS6-grade diesel engines and petrol engines will be brought down by 70% and 25%, respectively.

BS VI can bring PM in diesel cars down by 80 per cent . The new norms will bring down nitrogen oxides from diesel cars by 70 per cent and in petrol cars by 25 per cent.

Insta Link:

Prelims Link:

1. BS 1 vs 2 vs 3 vs 4 vs 6- key differences.
2. BS vs Euro norms.
3. Pollutants covered under these norms.
4. Sulphur vs NOx vs CO- which has the maximum impact on environment?
5. PM 2.5 vs 10.

Mains Link:

Examine the components of BS stage 6 norms and discuss implications of shifting from BS 4 to BS 6 stage on innovation in the automotive sector.

Sources: pib.