The past few months have witnessed a massive hue and cry over the alarming levels of pollution and its impact on the National Capital Region (NCR). This issue escalated tremendously with the Supreme Court passing an order in December 2015 to ban the registration of diesel SUVs and high-end vehicles in Delhi with engine capacity of over 2000 cc.
Following this, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) contemplated to extend the ban to 11 other cities. In response, the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises urged the NGT to refrain as this would have an adverse effect on the growth of the automobile industry. Mercedes Benz, bearing huge losses due to the pending interim order of the ban, approached the Supreme Court to reconsider the ban.
After a voluntary plea to pay environmental cess by the petitioner, the Supreme Court surprisingly agreed to lift the ban in lieu of a 1 percent cess to be levied on the manufacturers and distributors.
Judicial Intervention
Simultaneously, there were protests by taxi drivers against the announcement of the Delhi government and the Centre and Environment Pollution Control Authority that renewal of taxi permits for all diesel taxis will be processed only if they will switch to compressed natural gas (CNG).
As a result, the Supreme Court allowed diesel cabs, running on All India Tourist Permit to ply in NCR until the expiry of these permits. However, new city taxis were allowed to be registered if they run on petrol, CNG or dual fuel.
A common thread in the above scenarios is that an intervention in recent environmental concerns is becoming the prerogative of the judiciary. Any strict and aggressive stand is followed by widespread protests by the industry and the citizens. With time the courts prefer to pay heed to such campaigns and dilute their orders to take a liberal stand. The current order of the Supreme Court, lifting the ban depicts a drastic change in mindset since December 2015.
Based on IIT Kanpur’s report and WHO’s assessment, the Supreme Court, in its interim order, had clearly taken the view that diesel vehicles were contributing significantly to the pollution in NCR. However, after eight months, with no specific change in the scientific evidence, the apex court decided to convert the strict penalty of a ban to 1 percent cess of the ex-showroom price. What explains this sudden change?
Mandate on Environment Policy
The automobile industry asserted that the diesel ban in Delhi resulted in a loss of 5,000 jobs and 11,000 units of vehicles. Society of Indian Automotive Manufacturers observed that a countrywide ban on diesel cars will lead to a loss of approximately 47,000 jobs. The investment made by manufacturers to comply with emissions will become futile and result in loss in vehicle production.
The Centre also supported the industries, stating that diesel may not be an undesirable fuel. But do these reasons justify the radical change in the approach of the apex court of the country? As the Supreme Court lacks the expertise and resources to ponder over these concerns before taking a strict position on such issues, a new method to address such policy issues is mandated. This entire episode portrays the need for an intense involvement of all stakeholders for a successful environmental initiative.
Is ‘Regulated Lobbying’ the Answer?
And one of the effective ways to encourage such involvement is ‘regulated lobbying’. Globally only a few countries regulate the activity of lobbying, prominent being United States, Canada and Germany. Lobbying, though fraught with a risk of high prevalence of corruption in India, may prove to be an effective tool of policy-making with the needed contribution from the industries and the civil society at the opportune time.
We need new ways and means to balance the emerging environmental issues against individualistic desires. It will be better to ‘regulate lobbying’ rather than witness managed campaigns running the country.
(The writer works at the National Council of Applied Economic Research. This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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