Moving towards a cleaner and greener future, the Supreme Court has clarified that no new BS-IV cars will be sold in India from April 2020. Switching to BS-VI emission norms was first proposed in 2016, where the government announced to skip the BS-V norms and will directly implement the cleaner and better BS-VI regulation.
The manufacturers asked for a grace period to stock and sell their BS-IV vehicles. The government had proposed a grace period to manufacture BS-IV models until the end of March 2020 and sell these stocks till September 2020. The announcement was made after the decision by a panel of three judges headed by Justice Madan B. Lokur. The announcement stated that only BS-VI compliant vehicles will be sold in the country from April 2020 and moving to a cleaner fuel is the need of the hour.
Switching to BS-VI norms from BS-IV is a major leap as carmakers have to change their technology and the oil refineries have to upgrade their process to further purify the fuel for a higher octane and cetane level so that the fuel can pass the regulation. As of now only a few carmakers namely Mercedes and BMW have BS-VI compliant vehicles in their stable.