Why it's worrisome BS-III vehicles are selling like mobile phones
In what can be considered a genuinely positive step towards tackling India’s air pollution menace, the Supreme Court of India has banned the sale of vehicles that do not comply with BS-IV emission norms, starting April 1, 2017.
What is BS?
“BS” stands for “Bharat Stage”, and is an emission regulation standards set by Indian regulatory bodies. These emission standards are set by the Central Pollution Control Board to keep a check on the pollutant levels emitted by vehicles. The higher the Roman numeral suffixed to BS, the stricter the norms.
The first emission norms in India were introduced for vehicles running on petrol in 1991, and for diesel vehicles in 1992. BS-III was rolled out in NCR and several other cities in a bid to check on pollution throughout 2005 and 2006.
The BS regulations are based on European emission regulations. They are called “Euro”. So, BS-III is the same as Euro 3. The problem is that it is woefully outdated. Europe’s emission regulation is as strict as it gets. While India finally managed to implement BS-III norms across the nation only in 2010, European nations had moved onto Euro 4 by 2005, Euro 5 by 2009 and Euro 6 by 2014.
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| Photo: Reuters |
The implementation of BS IV is hence vital. After all, the national capital region’s smog problem is sufficient proof of how polluted this country is. The rule has, however, had a rather weird impact on the automobile industry.
The Auto-matic reaction
Stricter emission regulations have been welcomed by a few companies. But for the majority, it is the demonetisation equivalent of vehicles for them.
BS-III vehicle ban brings huge discounts on 2-wheelers. Check out the bumper sale. #ITVideohttps://t.co/59Uo9CL3ia pic.twitter.com/Dh7ya0nSQx
— IndiaTodayFLASH (@IndiaTodayFLASH) March 31, 2017
A spokesperson from Tata Motors said to the Times of India, "The Supreme Court order banning sale of all BS-III vehicles from April 1 is an unexpected and unprecedented move that will have a material impact on the entire automotive industry, OEMs' and dealer networks and is a penalty to the entire automotive industry."
The fault lies to a certain degree with the manufacturers themselves. Even if they had not anticipated the move to be this swift, it was a move they should have foreseen in general. To their credit, a lot of automobile companies had already begun complying with the BS-IV regulations. The ones that are in a fix right now, are manufacturers of two-wheelers, as a majority of them still follow BS-III guidelines.
According to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) the number of BS-III compliant vehicles in stock (from various companies) stands at 8.24 lakh, worth up to Rs 20,000, at present. These include close to 96,000 commercial vehicles, over six lakh two-wheelers and roughly 40,000 three-wheelers.
A lot of left-over stock and a very short deadline to make money off it, has led to crazy sales. In a rush to sell the soon-to-become unsellable products, companies have started offering massive discounts, in some cases, up to 50 per cent! According to the New Indian Express, two-wheeler companies like Hero MotoCorp, HMSI, Bajaj Auto and Suzuki Motorcycle are offering discounts of up to Rs 22,000 on BS-III models to liquidate stocks.
"If there is any unsold inventory left, we have the possibility to export as we are a big exporter to around 70 countries across the world," said, S Ravikumar, President of Bajaj Auto, a company that is giving out discounts ranging from Rs 3,000 to Rs 12,000 along with free insurance. But the possibilities of any inventory being left is slim. Thanks to these discounts, people have purchased these BS-III models like there is no tomorrow.
In fact, several showrooms now remain empty. It is almost eerily similar to the state of ATMs in our country a few months back. This also brings us to the downside of this regulation. The fear of having useless inventory motivated companies to slash prices. And low prices motivated people to buy while the offer lasted. The resutant situation is one where the roads are suddenly going to be flooded with way too many BS-III compliant two-wheelers, that is going to only add to the increasingly toxic levels of air pollution in our country.
But at least we are trying.