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Move to close ranks

Vidya Deshpande

The war between the pro-diesel auto manufacturers and the anti-diesel greenies has been raging for long. Armed with an array of facts, both sides have been publicly debating the issue to generate enough public interest.

But delegates at a recent seminar on `Automobile and Fuel Technologies--Solutions for the Environment', organised by the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI) agreed that air quality improvement cannot be achieved without close collaboration between auto and oil companies and support from policy makers and regulators. On the basis of this, TERI has proposed to set up a research-auto-oil-government forum to make this collaborative process happen. The forum will be set up in collaboration with the Central Pollution Control Board and TERI.

The first step of the forum would be to lay down specific targets for improvement of air quality in a time-bound manner. It will then draw a detailed road map for reaching these goals, including a commitment on the part of different agencies to dischargetheir obligations to achieve the defined objectives. TERI on its part will provide the data and research and inputs to assist the decision making process.

The delegates, which included members of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), felt that improved automobile technology and cleaner fuels are not by themselves sufficient to bring about the desired reduction in vehicular emissions without an integrated transport policy. Without such a policy, the TERI mandate on the seminar said, it was possible that the growth in motor vehicles would partially or fully offset the improvements obtained from the increase in energy efficiency and the reduction in emission outputs of individual vehicles.

The mandate stressed on the importance of travel-demand management, which would be a key ingredient in the current air pollution strategy. These demand measures range from simple traffic engineering inventions (coordinated signals, reversible lanes and one-way street pair) to traffic restraints (arealicensing schemes, parking controls, exclusive pedestrian zones and vehicle bans).

The specific recommendations that have been made, as a fallout of the seminar, include: