NEW DELHI: India will implement the Bharat Stage-V, or BS-V, emission norms for vehicles across the country from 2019, the government said in a statement. This ends the debate around the oil ministry’s push to directly progress from the current BS-IV to BS-VI norms to speed up the green initiative.“It has also been decided that BS-V fuel quality and emission norms will be implemented in the entire country from 2019 and BSVI emission norms for four-wheelers shall be implemented from 2023,” according to a statement uploaded on the oil ministry website.Refiners were more or less in sync with the oil ministry’s idea to upgrade directly to the BS-VI stage as the investments needed to upgrade to stage V or VI were similar and by first upgrading to V and then to VI would have meant additional cost. But carmakers were staunchly opposed to it, citing heavy investments in a shorter timeframe. This is why the road transport and heavy industries ministries have been opposing skipping the stage-V norms.Bharat stage norms, based on European regulations, are emission standards decided by the government to regulate the amount of air pollutants from vehicles. Following a rapid rise in air pollution that’s choking cities and fuelling green activism, there has been pressure on the government to speed up efforts at improving the fuel quality. The emission of Sulphur, a key pollutant, from BS-V fuel is just a fifth of that in BS-IV.According to the roadmap laid in the Auto Fuel Vision and Policy 2025, released last year, the BS-V norms were to be implemented between April 2020 and March 2021 for all four-wheelers. The BS-VI was to be rolled out from April 2024. The auto fuel policy also estimated the capital cost for refiners across the country to upgrade to BS-V norms at Rs 80,000 crore.The penetration of BS-IV motor spirit or petrol in the domestic market was 24% and that for BS-IV grade diesel was 16% in 2014, according to auto fuel policy report. India introduced BS-IV auto fuel in 13 cities in 2010 and has decided to extend it across the country by April 1, 2017, in phases, according to the government statement.State fuel retailers are already powering 2,140 petrol pumps by solar energy and plan to raise it to 7,200 by March 2017, the government statement said.