Why India's tailpipe pollution regime needs urgent reform
The Commission for Air Quality Management recently directed that all end-of-life vehicles (ELV) will not be given fuel in Delhi starting July 1, 2025. While the move reflects an intent to curb vehicular pollution to address the Delhi-NCR's chronic air quality crisis, it distracts from the deeper malaise: the failure to strictly enforce emission compliance on all vehicles on the road, not just the old ones. The air quality discourse appears to have increasingly turned punitive over the years. From banning older vehicles to restricting fuel access for 'over-aged' vehicles, Delhi appears to be shifting all its environmental responsibility onto vehicle owners. Using vehicle age as a proxy for pollution, it overlooks the complex relationship between fuel, engine maintenance, and usage. A closer look into the systemic architecture such as unrenewed emission verification norms, regulatory gaps in testing frameworks, and poor enforcement of fuel efficiency standards reveals a troubling reality: India's policy focus is targeting the tailpipe without reforming the pipeline.
Age vs. Emissions: A Scientific Disjunct India's air pollution control framework, influenced by European emission regulations and early 2000s Supreme Court rulings, has evolved into the Bharat Standards (BS). Judicial decisions force diesel vehicles off the roads after 10 years and petrol after 15, regardless of compliance with the set emission standards. This approach that prioritises age over actual emissions creates a disjunct: a well-maintained BS-IV vehicle running on petrol or diesel and regularly passing pollution tests must be scrapped, while newer, but poorly maintained vehicles can continue to operate. Originally a thumb rule to compensate for limited available enforcement facilities, this blanket age-based criterion needs replacement by more granular, real-time metrics using emission data, owing to the changes in the air pollution index in Delhi-NCR. While in 2000s, studies attributed vehicular contributions to PM2.5 emissions at around 25 per cent, today, other denser sources such as construction dust, industrial emissions, and seasonal fires also contribute significantly to Delhi's pollution.
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