Business and environment: LHC stops government from opening tender for Euro II buses

‘Govt going after expensive buses when fuel not available in Punjab’.

LAHORE:

The Lahore High Court has stopped the Punjab government from opening bids for a contract to buy 1,200 diesel buses after a transporter raised concerns about the viability of the vehicles.

The government had planned to open the tender at 4pm on Monday, but Justice Ijazul Ahsan delayed it after the petition from Gujranwala Tours, a private bus operator.

The judge directed the government to file a reply to the petition by September 17 and directed the petitioner to make major fuel companies and the Environmental Protection Agency parties to the plea so they could also be consulted.

Petitioner’s counsel Tafazzul H Rizvi said that the government sought to buy 1,200 buses and give them to operators like Gujranwala Tours, who would then repay the government over time.

He said that the Euro II buses would be 45 per cent more expensive than Euro 1 buses. He said that the government had declared that the buses must be Euro II compliant, but Euro II compliant fuel was not available in the Punjab.

He said that a refinery needed to invest some $700 million (Rs66.262 billion) to be able to produce Euro II compliant diesel. He said no refinery in Pakistan had a plan to make such an investment. He said his client had consulted various oil refineries about the availability of Euro II fuel and they had told him that they would not be able to produce such fuel in the near future.

He said if the Euro II buses were imported and run on Euro I fuel, they would quickly break down. He said that in the recent past, the government had bought buses which ran on CNG. These buses were idle half the week because of the non-availability of CNG.

Rizvi said that his client’s transport business was 15 years old and he currently owned 125 buses. He asked the court to restrain the provincial government from procuring Euro II buses.

An additional advocate general submitted that Euro II fuel was available with the Pak-Arab Refinery Corporation (Parco) and could be made available in the Punjab, so the petition was baseless and should be dismissed.

Replying to the AAG’s submission, Rizvi said that Parco was responsible for a very small proportion of the diesel supply in the province and did not sell Euro II fuel in the Punjab except in Islamabad.

The judge stayed the opening of the tender and remarked that all stakeholders must be consulted on the matter.

What’s in a Euro?

Euro II is a standard that sets limits for the levels of pollutants  nitrogen oxides, total hydrocarbon, non-mehtyl hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and particulate matter  in exhaust emissions from new motor vehicles.

The Euro II emissions standard was introduced in Europe in 1996. Currently, cars in Europe must meet the Euro V emissions standard, while Euro VI is to be introduced in 2014.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 4^th, 2012.