Standards, Labels, the Building Code and the Designated Consumer

In one line

Section 14 is where the star label, the building code, the designated consumer, the energy savings certificate and the carbon credit trading scheme all come from, and every one of them is a notification of the Central Government made in consultation with the Bureau.

The shape of section 14

One sentence opens it, and it governs everything after. The Central Government may, by notification, in consultation with the Bureau, and then twenty four clauses.

Three things follow from that opening.

The power is the Central Government's, exercised by notification. The Bureau is consulted; it does not decide.

The power is discretionary in form. The word is may, so the standards, the labels and the designated consumers exist only so far as the Government has notified them.

And clauses (p) to (s), the building code clauses, carry a proviso. They shall be exercised in consultation with the concerned State, because building is a State subject and the code enters through the State's own building bye-laws.

The standards, and the prohibition

Clause (a) lets the Government specify the norms for processes and energy consumption standards for any equipment, appliance, vehicle, vessel, industrial unit, building or establishment which consumes, generates, transmits or supplies energy.

Clause (b) lets it specify the equipment, appliance, vehicle, vessel, industrial unit, building or establishment, or a class of them, for the purposes of the Act.

Clause (c) is the enforcement clause, and it is the sharpest provision in the statute. The Government may prohibit the manufacture or import of anything specified under clause (b) unless it conforms to the energy consumption standards specified under clause (a).

And its first proviso goes further. An industrial unit specified under clause (b) shall close its operations unless it conforms to the norms for processes or energy consumption standards specified under clause (a).

A statute that can close a factory for inefficiency is not a persuasion statute. That sentence should be quoted in any answer about how Indian law enforces energy conservation.

Two protections balance it. From the date the norms are notified, no prohibition notification may issue within six months for equipment, appliances, vehicles or vessels, or within two years for the closure of an industrial unit. And the Central Government may, having regard to market share and technological development, and for reasons recorded in writing, extend the six months by a further period not exceeding six months.

Clause (d) is the label: the Government may direct display of such particulars on a label on equipment or on an appliance specified under clause (b), in such manner as may be specified by regulations. That is the statutory basis of the star rating on an air conditioner or a refrigerator.