NEW DELHI: On the lines of the practice followed in Paris , different colour-coded hologram-based stickers would now be put on vehicles in India to indicate the nature of fuel being used. Vehicles running on relatively cleaner fuels like petrol and CNG would be given blue sticker while similar ones in orange would be pasted on vehicles using diesel. It will be rolled out from the national capital by end of next month.

Prodded by the Supreme Court to adopt colour-coded stickers for vehicles, the Centre on Monday told a bench of Justices Madan B Lokur, S Abdul Nazeer and Deepak Gupta that the government had decided to amend the Central Motors Vehicles Rules to pave the way for mandatory pasting of stickers on cars. The proposal for colour coding was mooted by advocate Aparajita Singh, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae .

She pleaded that colour coding would be more effective than ‘evenodd scheme’ in controlling pollution whenever it reached alarming level as the authorities could identify polluting vehicles without examining them.

“It is important to classify fuel according to its polluting properties. This would help policy-makers and public in identifying cleaner vehicles. Paris has classified vehicles into six categories based on fuel and issued colour-coded stickers for identification. Similar colour-coded stickers can be used to identify vehicles in India and restrict the use of dirtier vehicles during poor category days. This would be more scientific than the ‘odd and even scheme’ that is being followed presently,” she told the bench.

