New Delhi: In a big shocker to its customers, one of India’s leading carmakers Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on Thursday said that it will phase out all the diesel cars from its portfolio with effect from April 1, 2020, the day when new emission norms called Bharat Stage VI takes effect. “From April 1, 2020 we will not be selling diesel cars,” MSI Chairman RC Bhargava told reporters during an interaction in the national capital. The company had in November 2018 said that it was working overtime to stand clear on the BS-VI emission norms ahead of the approaching deadline. Maruti has recently re-launched the Baleno with a BS-VI compliant engine and has also come up with the new BS-VI updated Alto as well.

The company, however, stated that the diesel engines might be reintroduced depending upon the demand and its compatibility with the government's emission norms. According to a report by news agency PTI, Maruti has also increased prices of Baleno diesel range and RS petrol variant by up to Rs 15,000 (ex-showroom) with immediate effect.

The Baleno RS, which comes with a 1-litre booster jet petrol engine, will now be available at Rs 8.88 lakh, MSI said in a regulatory filing. It was earlier priced at Rs 8.76 lakh. After the revision, Baleno diesel range is now priced between Rs 6.73 lakh and Rs 8.73 lakh (ex-showroom). It was earlier tagged between Rs 6.61 lakh and Rs 8.60 lakh.

MSI did not give any reason for hiking the prices. Last week, the automobile giant had said it will continue to manufacture diesel cars that customers can afford, thus ruling out stopping the production of diesel cars completely.

Due to the implementation of BS-VI emission norms, market experts believe that prices of cars are set to get costlier from April next year. The auto major currently sells various cars with diesel powertrains, including S-Cross, Ciaz, Vitara Brezza, Dzire, Baleno, and Swift.

Currently, MSI's market share hovers around 51 per cent in the domestic passenger vehicle segment. The company currently gets nearly 30 per cent of its annual sales from diesel cars. In 2018-19, MSI sold a total of 17,53,700 units in the domestic market.