The Indian auto industry is going through
'explosive dieselisation' but the industry is
fudging data to divert public attention from the environmental and public health impact of excessive use of diesel in passenger cars, green group Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) charged on Wednesday.
A new analysis released by the group shows that there has been massive dieselisation of the car segment with diesel cars already accounting for 40 per cent of new cars sold in the country.
"The car industry is getting desperate to prove that cars use negligible amount of diesel. It has been claiming that diesel cars, SUVs and taxis use only five per cent of total diesel used so that it can
block the growing demand to put higher taxes on diesel cars," Anumita Roychowdhury of CSE said.
Even going by the industry's estimate of five per cent diesel being used in cars, taxis and jeeps, the figure comes to 3,276 thousand metric tonnes (TMT) of diesel.
Car industry is producing more large diesel cars.
Petrol cars are using about 4,272 TMT of petrol - a third of the total petrol consumed in the country. This means diesel is already over 40 per cent of the total fuel used in the car and SUV segments, she said.
"Our analysis shows that the industry has fudged data. It has created a mysterious category called 'others' which consumes 12 per cent of the total diesel used in the country. However, this category has not been defined by the industry and rather used to reduce the relative share of the critical sectors - transport, industry and power," Roychowdhury said.
What the industry has cleverly done is to reapportion the diesel used in the road transport sector to all the modes.
Thus, passenger diesel threewheelers use six times more diesel than cars. Use by cars, jeeps or MUVs and taxis has been reduced to half of the previous government estimates.
There are 24 diesel car models in engine size range of under 1,400 cc; 42 in the range of 1,401- 2,000 cc and 61 above 2,000 cc engines
In fact, estimates by the government's Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell or PPAC, which are cited in the Planning Commission's Kirit Parikh Committee Report of 2010, say that diesel passenger cars use up 15 per cent of diesel and are the second largest users of the fuel in the country. The Cell also says that petrol consumption has slowed down while diesel use has registered 6.4 per cent growth.
CSE said that availability of cheap diesel was spurring the sale of diesel cars, posing a threat to the health of people.
"Emission data shows that today's diesel cars, on an average, emit seven times more particulate matter and three to five times more nitrogen oxides than petrol cars. There is sufficient evidence that tiny particulate matter - PM 2.5 - emitted from a diesel vehicle are toxic and cause cancer," Roychowdhury said.
Pollution associated with diesel has been rising. For example, in Delhi, levels of particulate matter of size PM10 in the residential areas have been rising since 2005 and stood at around 270 microgram per cubic meter in 2010 in comparison to less than 120 microgram per cubic meter in 2005. Similarly, the level of nitrogen dioxide increased to around 55 microgram per cubic meter in 2010 in comparison to around 38 microgram per cubic meter in 2007.
Diesel cars are legally allowed to emit three times more nitrogen oxides and several times more particulate matter than petrol. "It is clear that even what Indian industry calls 'clean diesel' is far from clean in terms of toxicity," Roychowdhury said.
Courtesy: Mail Today 
(Picture for representational purposes only) 
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