In a move to curb vehicular pollution, the government on Wednesday announced it would prepone implementation of Bharat Stage (BS)-VI emission standards by a year, to April 2020, Business Standard reported. In the process, it decided to skip the BS-V emission standard. As per Business Standard report, this is the second time the BS-VI implementation has been advanced. An earlier draft had advanced its date of adoption to 2021, from 2024. No other country has skipped a standard and leapfrogged to a new standard directly. The government had earlier planned to implement BS-V from 2019 and BS-VI from 2021 for four-wheelers. The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari and attended by the ministers of environment, petroleum and heavy industries. During the meet, the petroleum and natural gas ministry assured supply of BS-VI fuel across the country by April 1, 2020. In the new emission standard, particulate matter (PM) emission for diesel cars would be 80 per cent less than BS-IV and the nitrogen oxide (NOx) level would be 83 per cent lower. The sulphur content in fuel norms for diesel and petrol under both V and VI standards would not change at 10 parts per million, though it is substantially less than the 50 mandated for both fuels under BS-IV. Govt to leapfrog to BS-VI from 2020 Adoption of the new emission standards will also result in prices of vehicles going up. "An estimated increase of Rs 1 lakh for diesel cars and Rs 20,000 for petrol cars is expected with the switch to BS-VI," said R C Bhargava, chairman, Maruti Suzuki, the country's largest car maker. Automobile companies voiced apprehension and said it would 'neither be technically possible nor advisable' to skip BS-V or advance the onset of BS-VI, before the earlier scheduled 2023. The industry would face other issues while complying with the new standards ahead of schedule.