3.5. Green Initiatives

Taxi Policy Guidelines: The committee, constituted by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, to review issues relating to taxi permits and propose taxi policy guidelines to promote urban mobility, submitted its report. The committee has recommended that city taxies should be allowed to run on App Based platforms. The policy recommendations also ensure that bigger aggregators do not undercut the traditional cabs. The major focus of the policy is to ensure safe, secure and affordable ride to the common public so as to help in reducing congestion as well as pollution in the cities. The policy also recommends that the app used by aggregators is validated for its integrity by an agency authorized by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. It is expected that the policy would help in a healthy growth of the taxi industry. The policy is recommendatory in nature and would help to provide a particular framework to help the States in framing detailed regulations.

Vehicle Fleet Modernization Programme: The concept note on ‘Vehicle Fleet Modernization Programme’ to enable the replacement of old, heavy and medium commercial vehicles as they contribute the maximum of vehicular pollution was placed on MoRTH’s official website for information and comments from concerned Ministries and Departments and other stakeholders. The policy proposes that old vehicles would get the following financial benefits: -

The scrap value of the vehicle and incentives from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and incentives from government.

MoRTH has issued a notification mandating implementation of Bharat Standards-VI (BS-

VI) emission norms from 1st April 2020 for all vehicles. This is a significant step to combat vehicular pollution in the country.

India ready for flex - fuel automobiles: India has put in place all required regulations for the use of Flex-fuel like ethanol mixed with petrol.

Vehicle manufacturers will have to give details about the emission and noise levels of each vehicle they produce: Manufacturers of all kinds of motor vehicles as also E-rickshaws and E- carts will have to give detailed declaration about the emission levels of the vehicle they have manufactured

Ethanol-fuelled Bus: Notification was issued for mass emission standards for flexi-fuel ethanol E85 and ED95. This Notification will enable vehicle manufacturers to manufacture vehicles running on bio-ethanol E85 and ED95. A bio-ethanol fuel bus is already under trial in Nagpur.

Bio-CNG and Bio-Diesel: Notification has been issued for norms for the use of Bio-CNG for testing and exhaust emission for vehicles running on Bio-CNG. With this notification, the vehicle manufacturers can manufacture, sell and get vehicles fuelled by Bio-CNG in the country. Draft Notification was also formulated for Mass Emission Standards for Bio-diesel (B 100) fuelled vehicles.

Retro fitment of existing polluting vehicle into electric hybrid and electric vehicle permitted: Enabling regulations have been finalized and demonstration of technology completed successfully.

National Green Highways Project: The initial plantation drive on 1,500 km of National Highways at a cost of about Rs. 300 crore was launched as part of the Green Highways (Plantation, Transplantation, Beautification and Maintenance) Policy 2015 on 1st of July, 2016. The Policy aims to develop eco-friendly National Highways with the participation of community, farmers, NGOs and private sector. The policy will help to improve aesthetics of the project corridors, reduce the impact of air pollution and reduce accidents by cutting down glare from approaching vehicles. Under the Green Highways Project the government has made it mandatory to set aside 1 per cent of the total project cost of any NH contract to a Green Fund corpus that will be used for plantation purposes. Afforestation is expected to help in sequestering approximately 12 lakh mt carbon annually.

‘Adopt a Green Highway’ Program was launched in July, 2016. It seeks to engage corporates, Public Sector units, Government organizations and other institutions for developing green corridor along National Highways through plantation and allied activity on avenue, median and other available nearby land patches.

‘Kisan Harit Rajmarg Yojana’ is a pilot scheme to extend green belt beyond the existing ‘Right of Way’ of highways by engaging farmers and providing alternative livelihood option to the nearby communities.

A National Green Highways Mission Mobile App has also been launched to enable the management to monitor all the projects with real time data from the fields. The technology will assist in identifying the bottlenecks quickly and ensure speedy and successful implementations of the projects.

E-rickshaw policy of Government has helped in reducing pollution to a great extent. E-carts and E-rickshaws have been freed from permit requirements.