Ministry of Road, Transport & Highways has issued orders to all state Governments banning sales of all BS4 vehicles starting April 1, 2020.

The deadline for selling vehicles with BS4 emission norms has come to a close. In an order directed at all state Governments in the country the Ministry of Road, Transport & Highways has stated that no BS4 vehicles will be registered anywhere in the country starting April 1, 2020. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in its order on October 24th, 2018 had declared that no vehicles that comply with Bharat Stage-IV can be sold or registered after March 31st, 2020, thereby giving enough time to the automobile manufacturers' to plan their inventories.

However the current lockdown owing to the Coronavirus pandemic has meant that lakhs of vehicles mostly 2-wheelers have remained unsold at dealerships across the country. The Federation of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA) has gone to the Supreme Court asking for an extension of this deadline and last Friday the Court did give them partial relief as it allowed for 10% of total unsold stock to be sold even after the earlier decided deadline would get over. This is in addition to the vehicles that have already been sold but cannot be registered due to the nationwide lockdown.

The Ministry in its communication to the states has also attached this latest Court order which says that once the lockdown is lifted Automobile dealers will have a maximum of ten days to sell and register a tenth of total unsold BS4 stocks. However due to environmental concerns these rules do not apply for the Delhi/NCR region where no new BS4 vehicles can now be sold. Transport departments in all states have been strictly asked to comply with these orders.