Diesel engines polluters no more: Khattar

New Delhi, Jan 24 (UNI) The CEO and MD of India's largest carmaker Maruti Jagdish Khattar today said diesel vehicles are no more polluters as their engines come fitted with cutting edge technologies.

Vehicular pollution from diesel cars was due to low technology engines they were running on and bad quality of fuel availble, he said while unveiling the company's first diesel vehicle, 'Swift Diesel', here.

''Whereas the quality of diesel has already improved, cars like Swift Diesel, which has the latest technology has to offer, will address the other issue.'' Europe, which had the most stringent emission standards in the world, was also going for cars with similar state-of-the-art diesel mills, he said.

''Our engine was not only the best available at the moment but also future ready and was 'Euro IV' norm compliant, to be applied in the country by 2010/11. And in fact it would be also exported to Suzuki's plant in Hungary (Europe),'' he added.

Technology for this diesel engine was obtained by Suzuki through a technical licence agreement with European companies -- Fiat and Adam Opel.

''At present diesel cars only had about 18 per cent of the market share but with product like ours it was expected to grow,'' said Mr Khattar.

Demand for diesel cars was growing in India and Suzuki Motor Corp and Maruti Udyog had made major investments in the diesel facilities to serve this customer need, he said.

''We plan to invest Rs 2,500 crore by 2010 for producing diesel engines... Presently, we have a capacity to produce 1,00,000 units a year and we plan to increase it three times.'' After Tata Motors, Maruti was the only vehile manufacturer to go for diesel powertrains in the small passenger car segment. Later Mahindra in collaboration with Renault would be rolling out a diesel car and even Hyundai was said to be in the process of following suit.

UNI