Transport minister reveals vehicle scrapping policy draft
The government has taken important steps to ensure the fitness of old cars and to ensure proper system of scraping. Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday announced a Suo Moto Statement on the proposed “Vehicle scraping policy” in the Lok Sabha. Under this, fitness test of commercial vehicles older than 15 years and private vehicles older than 20 years will be required. Their certificate will be renewed only after passing it. Unfit vehicles will be scraped. Special centers will be set up for fitness testing of trains.
Announcing the new policy in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister said that it is a profitable deal for all parties. Scraps of old and unfit cars will give many discounts to their owners. GST is estimated to increase by 40 thousand crores from this policy. Safety will also be ensured by the removal of unfit vehicles from the road. Recycling of scrap from old vehicles will reduce the expenses of the vehicle industry and the industry will remain competitive. The implementation of this policy is expected to increase fuel efficiency and reduce pollution significantly. Not only this, 35,000 jobs are expected to be created with the new investment of Rs 10,000 crores and the size of the country’s auto industry is expected to increase from the current 4.5 lakh crores to 10 lakh crores.
In the budget presented on February 1, it was announced to introduce voluntary scrap policy in the coming financial year. Soon the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways will make the draft public and the opinions of the people concerned will be taken. Gadkari said that the government is also making efforts to build integrated scraping centers across the country. Special centers for scraping will be built at some identified places, including Alang in Gujarat, where various technologies of scraping will be used.
The scheme shall provide strong incentives to owners of old vehicles to scrap old and unfit vehicles through registered scrapping centres, which shall provide the owners with a scrapping certificate. Some of these incentives include:
(1) Scrap Value for the old vehicle given by the scrapping centre, which is approximately 4-6% of ex-showroom price of a new vehicle.
(2) The state governments may be advised to offer a road- tax rebate of up to 25% for personal vehicles and up to 15% for commercial vehicles
(3) The vehicle manufacturers are also advised for providing a discount of 5% on purchase of new vehicle against the scrapping certificate.
(4) In addition, the registration fees may also be waived for purchase of new vehicle against the scrapping certificate.
