The government has finally announced that the BS-V emission standard will be implemented across the country from 2019 followed by BS-VI in 2023, thus putting an end to the speculation that the latter would be advanced by skipping the BS-V stage altogether.

"It has been decided that BS-V fuel quality and emission norms will be implemented in the entire country from 2019 and BS-VI emission norms for four-wheelers shall be implemented from 2023," according to a circular on the website of the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas.

An official from the auto industry body, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) who Autocar India spoke to, welcomed the move. “The decision by the government to not skip the BS-V emission standard is a logical option. While BS-V requires vehicles in India to be fitted with a diesel particulate filter, BS-VI involves the optimisation of selective catalytic reduction technology. Leapfrogging to BS-VI wouldn’t give automakers enough time to validate these technologies, which could have led to major reliability issues in vehicles,” he said.

Automakers had voiced their displeasure over the proposed move, citing huge expenses towards incorporating design changes. Moreover, earlier this year, internal studies conducted by the government also revealed that skipping BS-V emission standard entirely and adopting BS-VI would not be feasible.

While BS-IV norms are being currently implemented in more than 50 cities where the required grade of fuel is available, the rest of the country follows BS-III standards. The circular further reiterates the government’s plans to make the BS-IV emission norms applicable nationwide by April 2017.

India previously followed the European emission norms with a time lag of five years, but this has been further delayed with the lag in implementation of BS-IV and BS-V.