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| Kathmandu, Friday March 14, 2003 Falgun 30, 2059. |
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Polluting vehicles
This refers to the editorial titled:
"Off the road", dated March 13, TKP.
There is an urgent need to ban polluting
vehicles from the valley. But when looking on how, there are always preconditions in order
to ban such vehicles instead of categorising the vehicles older than 20 years. Diesel
engine vehicles are the most polluting ones because of high adulteration of diesel. The
authority concerned must stop pollution by checking such adulteration. The engine has to
be properly maintained. This can be checked, conducting on the spot tests with the
pollution testing machine as it was done before. There are other means to reduce pollution
made by diesel engines.
For patrol engine vehicles, it is necessary
to allow only unleaded fuel, as it is common in many countries. It should be the rule that
all these vehicles do have a catalysator, with proper documents from the producer of the
vehicle. The quality and state of a vehicle pollutes environment, not the ageing vehicles.
There are different kinds of engines. Most Indian manufactured vehicles less than five
years old pollute our environment. They have weak piston rings, which result in polluting.
Banning vehicles older than 20 years will
make every vehicle owner to buy Indian made vehicles and the Nepalese have to pay the
price for that, which will benefit Indian vehicle manufacturers in the name of
environment.
When we have correct testing and proper
regulation of vehicles, all vehicles with lower engine quality, regardless of age, will
not ply on Kathmandu streets. What I, therefore, think is we are lacking in study
thoroughly and scientifically in order to control pollution. Everybody knows that our
children are affected due to high emission but no one has come up with scientific reasons.
The old vehicles, which have polluted less, are well maintained. New vehicles with poor
maintenance are polluting more. This is the main reason.
Juergen Skambraks
Kathmandu |
