The great Bhure Lal hijack

MOST of the country’s press, including this newspaper, have gone to town blaming Petroleum Minister Ram Naik and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit for bungling over the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) for commercial vehicles — several mile-long queues, and waits for upwards of 12 hours, are routine for Delhi’s buses and scooter-taxi drivers. Much of the anger is justified, since the petroleum ministry clearly never made arrangements for adequate CNG supplies. But far more to blame is the Bhure Lal Committee (BLC) which has been the guiding force behind the Supreme Court rulings. The fact that the Court didn’t fully appreciate the contradictions in the situation only added to the disaster. Some of the glaring contradictions:

Thanks to the submissions of the BLC, the Court came out with a ruling in 1999 on pollution norms for vehicles plying in the capital and, as a result of this, refineries were directed to provide diesel with a 0.25 per cent sulphur content for the entire country, and 0.05 per cent for the National Capital Region. Public sector refineries spent a whopping Rs 10,000 crore to bring down sulphur levels in diesel and benzene in petrol.

So, logically, when commercial vehicles were asked to ‘clean fuels’, low sulphur diesel should have been one of these. On March 26, 2001, the ministry asked the Court why diesel could not be used in addition to CNG. The Court asked BLC to look into the matter. The committee then did some amazing pyrotechnics. It said ‘hydrocarbon’ based fuels such as petrol and diesel are inherently polluting, but among these only CNG, LPG and Propane are ‘environmentally acceptable’. It said diesel could be used, but only if it had a sulphur content of 0.001. This, it said ‘‘is not available in the country and will have to be imported’’; given the problems with CNG, it recommended buses be allowed to ply on diesel for three more months, but be punitively fined. Great, but BLC didn’t mention certain things.

Diesel with 0.001 per cent sulphur is not used anywhere in the world except for a handful of countries like Sweden (the US and Japan use diesel with 0.05 per cent sulphur); such diesel is not traded anywhere in the world. BLC also didn’t tell the court that none of the vehicle manufacturers are in a position to convert/retrofit all of Delhi’s 13,000 commercial buses to CNG by December (only 2,570 buses run on CNG today).

Guided by various BLC submissions, the Court ruled on March 26 that low sulphur diesel was not a ‘clean fuel’, and ruled that all commercial vehicles would have to run on CNG. That’s when the great rush to convert scooters-taxis to CNG began — by the way, half of Delhi’s CNG demand today, and the huge queues, come from scooters-taxis. In other words, the rush and chaos on the roads today is a direct result of BLC informing the court that 0.05 per cent sulphur-diesel was not ‘clean’. Ironically, as part of the Euro-I and Euro-II rulings, the same Court had allowed registration of taxis-scooters running on this diesel till just the day before — that’s on March 25. The Court ruling that commercial vehicles should run on CNG is also curious since it had itself said low benzene petrol was a ‘clean’ fuel.

It gets worse. A few days after the Court said scooters and taxis would also have to use CNG, the ministry called Bhure Lal to explain there was no way it could meet the capital’s CNG needs if scooters and taxis were also to run on CNG. On April 26, this was given in writing to the Court which heard the matter the next day, but referred it to BLC! BLC submitted its recommendations only in July, and the Court hasn’t taken it up since.

After the original Bhure Lal recommendations two years ago, there was a rush of applications from firms who wanted to convert diesel buses to CNG. Well guess what, BLC now says no conversions should be done, instead brand-new engines should be purchased — apart from the fact it means great business for the Tatas and the Hindujas, the logic is quaint. If these convertors used poor technology or didn’t have stringent standards, shouldn’t this have been examined before plunging the capital into chaos?

BLC was also asked to examine the issue of standards for CNG vehicles, perhaps in view of the accidents with them. It now said the inspectors of the Department of Transport ‘‘lacked expertise in the field of CNG vehicles’’ and so the job of inspecting every converted bus for its fuel storage systems and engine should be entrusted to Gas Authority of India and Indraprastha Gas Limited ‘who are having requisite expertise’. Again, the lack of expertise to certify vehicles is something that should have been gone into earlier. In any case, GAIL is a gas supplier and has no expertise in certifying engines — so that’s another fast one pulled by BLC.

There is, undoubtedly, every reason for Delhi’s citizens to be mad with various branches of the government — for not providing enough CNG, for not laying down standards for CNG cylinders, or inspecting buses properly, and a lot more. But remember that a greater share of the blame lies elsewhere.

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