Interacting with newsmen here, newly elected SIAM president Venu Srinivasan said, for achieving Euro-II emission norms, sulphur content in petrol and diesel should be only 0.05 per cent which was not available anywhere in the country. He said in the metro cities, sulphur content was over 0.25 per cent and in other parts of the country, it was much higher. Srinivasan who is also chairman and managing director (CMD) of TVS-Suzuki Ltd, regretted that the Supreme Court had directed the auto-manufacturers to produce Euro norms compliant vehicles without issuing any direction to improve the fuel quality in the country.

"Vehicular pollution is caused on account of deficiencies in several systems. This includes fuel quality,traffic management, inspection and certification of in-use vehicles and vehicular technology," he said.

Speaking on the occasion, SIAM vice president R Seshasayee demanded to make available ultra low sulphur diesel of 0.05 per cent sulphur content and 0.05 per cent sulphur in petrol at the earliest to meet stringent emission norms.

Srinivasan said supply of good quality fuel alone would not be enough to reduce the emission level substantially in the country. "Unless there is a check on fuel quality, spare markets, implementation of inspection and certification systems and efficient traffic management systems, the emission level will not reduce substantially,'' he said. He also mentioned that the auto industry which was contributing about 4.5 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) every year at present had a potential to contribute about 10 per cent of the GDP in years to come.

He further said the performance of the industry, which had witnessed a downward trend since second half of 1996-97 hasslightly improved.The sales figures of the first month of the current fiscal shows a 13 per cent growth as compared to the same period in last year, he said. He said SIAM had initiated several programmes for clean air and safe motoring and had allocated substantial funds for several projects in the areas of road safety, emission, traffic management, inspection and certification of in-use vehicles and automotive research.