The National Green Tribunal on Thursday directed Environment Ministry and Ministry of Railways to fix emission standards for diesel locomotive engines in the country to reduce pollution.
A bench, headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar, directed the Environment Ministry to hold a meeting within two weeks with members of Central Pollution Control Board and Indian Railways. The next hearing of the bench has been fixed on February 9.
The meeting would deliberate and determine as to what standards have to be provided for emissions for diesel locomotive engines in India as well as indicate the steps that Indian Railways should take to bring the emissions within the prescribed parameters. The green panel henceforth directed the railways to submit this report to the tribunal within six weeks
The directions came during hearing a petition filed by S K Goyal from Delhi, related to harmful emissions from diesel locomotives.
In the course of the hearing, the counsel for the railways submitted international standards for emissions from diesel locomotive railway engines and also filed a data sheet indicating the emissions from 30 railway engines. He told the bench that the parameters detected during testing were “much in excess to international standards”.
Meanwhile, in November last year, the green bench had directed Ministry of Railways to hold a meeting with IIT, CPCB and Ministry of Petroleum and asked them to collect data and set emission standards to ensure that no pollution is caused from the locomotive engines.