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ShareNew Delhi: The government is in the final stages of notifying fuel efficiency standards for the automobile sector in the country, which will be enforced from 2011, environment minister Jairam Ramesh said today.
"We are right now engaged in finalising the administrative formalities on how these standards has to be notified, either through the Energy Conservation Act or the Motor Vehicles Act," Ramesh said at the inaugural session of the two-day 4th Environment Friendly Vehicles (EFV) conference here.
He said there are no two views that "we should move to a mandatory fuel efficiency standards regime by 2011" as the transport sector contributes about 15 to 20% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in India. How it should be done is being debated within the government, he said.
At present, the transport sector is placed at number three after the power and agriculture sectors, as far as the national emissions are concerned.
"But the rate at which the automobile sector is growing, our own estimations are that by the year 2030, it could account for close to 25% of our GHG emissions. Hence, not only from the point of view of air pollution, but also from that of climate change, has environment-friendly transportation assumed special importance," Ramesh added.
Ramesh said by 2011, it will be mandatory for automobile manufacturers to sell vehicles with energy-efficiency tags, and adding information on the labels will have to be certified by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE).
The industry has already come on board for voluntary certification, and in two years will take on the mandatory norms.
"The labelling of vehicles will not be based on one standard but different standards for different categories of automobiles such as small cars and commercial vehicles.
"Also, instead of the California route, which mandates curtail on emissions, we will follow a conventional route of legislating the KMP (kilometre per hour) figure," Ramesh said.
The government's decision on mandatory fuel efficiency standards holds importance against the backdrop of the next month's Copenhagen summit on Climate Change where India can showcase its commitment to emerge with solutions to tackle global warming.
The minister also discussed about the recently notified air quality standards, which he said put India on par with Europe and in many cases were much more stringent than those in the US.
