Indian Government Makes Real World Emission Testing Mandatory

As a part of the crackdown against the increasing menace of pollution in India, the government has now made it mandatory to randomly test at least half of the cars produced from a manufacturer’s plant. The move is a step in the direction of implementing the BS VI emission norms in the country by April 2020.

“At least 50 per cent of vehicle models produced from a particular plant shall be selected randomly from dealer’s location or warehouse,” said the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in a recent notification. 

This real world emission testing, set to come into effect from April 1, 2023, will be carried out under a process called the Conformity of Production (COP), the government added. 

Under the Central Motor Vehicles (11th Amendment) Rules, 2016, the government has also made provisions for testing agencies to start collecting data on real-time emission of on-road vehicles from April 1, 2020. 

“During type approval and COP applicable from April 1, 2020, emission measurement on vehicles ... shall be carried out on road for data collection and from April, 1 2023 in-service conformity factor shall be applicable,” the notification said.

The government said the vehicles/ engines filled with biodiesel blends up to seven per cent shall be tested with reference to diesel and vehicles fueled with biodiesel blends above seven per cent will be tested against respective blends.

It is an open secret that cars have higher emissions on the roads than in the laboratory. That’s how manufacturers like Volkswagen were able to ‘cheat’ the tests. Thus, the implementation of real world testing is a welcome move, especially now that the manufacturers have also supported the implementation of BS VI norms by 2020.