India, May 13 -- Over the past few weeks, the surprise announcement by Maruti Suzuki , the country's largest carmaker, that it would be withdrawing from the diesel segment after the new Bharat Stage-VI (BS-VI) norms come into force on April 1 next year, has the entire automotive industry in India aflutter. But Maruti Suzuki chairman RC Bhargava, had a point: Small diesel-engined cars will, for the large part, become unaffordable once these new norms come into force.

There are a couple of reasons behind this. The first and one, which should not be ignored, is the accelerated timeline the Government introduced for BS-VI emission norms three years ago, following a particularly polluted winter in the capital. In doing so, India was to skip B...