The deadline for switching over to Euro-III petrol and diesel has been set as October 1. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has issued a fresh deadline for the oil companies and wants them to sell the new fuel by that time.

The cleaner fuels are going to charge more money from the consumers. As of now, Euro-III fuel is expected to cost Rs. 0.20-0 .40 a litre more than normal fuels. Euro-IV is already made available in 13 cities and are priced Rs. 0.50 a litre more.

The oil companies are not happy with this decision. They had requested the ministry to implement the Euro-III norms with the Euro-IV standards in October, but the ministry did not accept it. The oil companies wanted a month's time to implement the new schedule.

A total investment of Rs. 36,000 crore has been made by the oil companies in the process of refinery upgradation to be able to meet the deadline of April 1 for Euro-IV fuels.

As of now, the oil companies are facing trouble on the logistics front and so they are not able to make the Euro-IV fuels available in the way they were supposed to do.