The Hindu : More diesel cars sold despite threat of cancer

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 23, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

More diesel cars sold despite threat of cancer

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JAN. 22. Despite mounting new evidence damning diesel fumes as harbingers of cancer and other deadly ailments, Delhi has registered an alarming 106 per cent annual incremental increase in registration of diesel cars since 1998-99 as against 12 per cent for petrol cars, the Centre for Science and Environment said here today.

Pointing out that the enticing gap in the price of diesel and petrol was a key factor in this distortion, the Centre blamed the Government for not doing anything to plug the difference even as Delhi despite having the highest per capita income among all the Metros has the lowest diesel price.

The CSE said the tilt towards diesel can also be gauged from the fact that while in 1999, the share of diesel cars was a mere 4 per cent of the new registrations, the figure had jumped to 6 per cent in 2003 and if the jeeps or sports utility vehicles (SUVs) were also considered, it showed a growth rate of 18 per cent.

Furthermore, upon surveying vehicle registrations done by the capital's State Transport

Authority, CSE said the actual number of SUVs on Delhi's roads could be much higher due to their daily influx from the surrounding satellite towns.

And now that the public transport - comprising buses, three-wheelers and taxis -- in Delhi has switched to cleaner fuels, especially compressed natural gas (CNG), the Centre said it is the personal car segment which has become the cause of worry.

"This is very disturbing because deadly facts about diesel toxicity and evidence of the acute cancer-causing potential of diesel pollutants are pouring in from around the world. Diesel fumes have been found to bear a lot more particles than petrol exhaust and are several times more toxic. Most of the recent studies emanate from the US and Europe that have superior diesel fuels and technology," said Anumita Roychowdhury, Associate Director, who is coordinating the Right To Clean Air campaign at CSE.

But despite the diesel mania reigning high here, the CSE said the regulators continue to maintain that Euro-II standards have adequate safeguard and also harp on the combination of reduced sulphur levels (500 ppm to 350 ppm) and oxidation catalysts in diesel.

On both these counts, it said, the regulators were wrong as reduction in sulphur levels enhances health risk from diesel emissions since it leads to oxidisation of almost all fuel sulphur.

As for the regulator's obsession with intermediate approaches like Euro-II and Euro-III

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