Archives

Citizens’ missive to Delhi’s chief minister on the govt. backtracking from decision to increase sales tax on diesel

Dear Chief minister, cheap diesel will cheapen human life even more

Even as cheap diesel fans the mad craze for diesel cars and threatens to expose thousands more to toxic diesel particulates, the Delhi government backtracks from its decision to increase sales tax on diesel. Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in an open letter to the chief minister Sheila Dikshit today demanded an immediate review of the skewed taxation and its correction in the forthcoming budget to end the unfair advantage that diesel enjoys.

New Delhi June 25, 2004: Disturbed by the fact that the Delhi government is backtracking from its decision to increase the sales tax on diesel and encourage the use of dirty diesel in the transport sector, the Centre for Science and Environment has sent a missive to the chief minister in protest. CSE has demanded that diesel cars and diesel fuel in the city be made more expensive to discourage the use of this toxic in the interest of public health.

In an open letter to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, CSE has expressed grave misgivings and stated, "the alarming levels of dieselisation of the personal car fleet in Delhi threatens to enhance toxification of the city’s air. The enormous effort the city has made to control toxic diesel particulate pollution with the help of the largest-ever CNG programme in the world may get lost if immediate steps are not taken to restrict expansion of the personal diesel car fleet that meet only ineffectual emissions standards."

CSE has drawn attention to the fact that though Delhi has the country’s highest per capita income, it still has the lowest diesel prices. The sales tax on diesel is fixed at a paltry 12 per cent. Delhi is not even imposing the minimum 20 per cent sales tax on diesel, as is enforced by other states. In Mumbai, for instance, the sales tax on diesel is as high as 34 per cent. If the Delhi government could apply the ‘polluter pay principle’ and bring the sales tax on diesel at par with, say, Mumbai’s rates, then it could net in as much as Rs 700 crore per year.

The Delhi government is concerned that the low taxes in the neighbouring state of Haryana will push demand across the border and dampen revenue collection. CSE holds that as sizeable fraction of the public transport fleet is already on CNG, and also because it is possible to encourage the remaining segment of the city commercial fleet to move to CNG, the implication of the cross border shift will be negligible. On the contrary, the higher sales tax on diesel will help check the rapidly rising numbers of diesel passenger cars in the city.

CSE has urged the chief minister to examine the fuel taxation policy immediately before the finalisation of the budget this year to end the discrimination that the diesel passenger cars enjoy. It will be extremely damaging to ignore the scientific evidence from around the world on the toxic effect of the killer diesel. Recent reports from the USEPA show that diesel engines emit almost 100 times more particulate matter than petrol engines. Similarly, scientists in Japan have also isolated a deadly compound in diesel fumes that is the strongest carcinogen known. Diesel particulate matter has been branded as a probable human carcinogen by many international scientific organisations and regulatory agencies, including the International Agency for Research on Cancer, WHO, USEPA, and California Air Resources Board.

CSE has further drawn attention of the chief minister to the many studies now available that bear out the cancer risk from diesel fumes and demonstrate the special vulnerability of children and the infirm. For instance, in a 2002 report, the US-based National Environment Trust states that exposure to diesel particulate matter causes infants to reach the USEPA’s one-in-one-million lifetime cancer limit in only 17-32 days. By the age of one, children will have exceeded this benchmark by 11 to 21 times, and by age of 18, by 121 to 252 times. Adults reach this limit in 35-71 days from exposure to diesel particulate matter. Yet another study from the Natural Resources Defence Council shows that children riding diesel school buses are being exposed to as much as 46 times the cancer risk considered significant by the USEPA.

CSE has cautioned that Delhi, which has earned a clean city image and worldwide recognition for its efforts to clean up its air, is letting flawed policies undermine its achievements and is intensifying health risks.

In view of this CSE has made the following demands:

• Eliminate the price advantage of diesel cars and make diesel vehicles pay for the environmental damages they cause. Increase sales tax on diesel, and additionally, impose emission tax on diesel cars.
• Demand and enforce Euro IV standards for all vehicles from 2005.
• Implement effective in-use vehicle inspection system for on-road diesel vehicles that can test and monitor particulate and nitrogen oxide emissions from diesel vehicles. Visibly smoking vehicles should be immediately taken off the road with strict penalties.

CSE has further noted that that despite the enormous efforts and substantial gains made following the implementation of a series of policy measures to combat air pollution, the city’s air remains polluted. The average particulate levels, a significant cause of health impacts in our cities, is still substantially above the national ambient air quality standards. This exposes the challenge in Delhi. The growing pollution load and its toxicity threatens to overwhelm all existing efforts at pollution control. There is now an urgent demand for the chief minister to take more aggressive actions to control and bring down the air pollution levels further.