INVESTOR SUMMIT ON VEHICLE SCRAPPING

Recently, the Prime Minister while addressing the Investor Summit in Gujarat via video conferencing launched the Vehicle Scrapping Policy/National Automobile Scrappage Policy.
The Summit will invite investment for setting up vehicle scrapping infrastructure under the Vehicle Scrapping Policy.
The Vehicle Scrapping Policy was announced in March 2021 by the government.
The policy is estimated to cover 51 lakh Light Motor Vehicles (LMVs) that are above 20 years of age and another 34 lakh LMVs above 15 years of age.

Important points:

Reducing the population of old and defective vehicles, bringing down vehicular air pollutants, improving road and vehicular safety.
Old vehicles will have to pass a fitness test before re-registration and as per the policy government commercial vehicles more than 15 years old and private vehicles which are over 20 years old will be scrapped.
Old vehicles will be tested at authorized Automated Fitness Center and will not be scrapped merely on the basis of age.
Emission test, braking system, safety components will be tested and the vehicles which fail in the fitness test will be scrapped.
If the old vehicle passes the test, the owner can continue to use it, but the charges for reregistration will be much steeper.
The Union Road and Transport Ministry has also issued rules for registration procedure for scrapping facilities, their powers, and scrapping procedure to be followed.
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 to provide incentive to owners of old vehicles to scrap old and unfit vehicles.
Vehicle manufacturers will also give a discount of 5% to people who will produce the ‘Scrapping Certificate’ and registration fees will be waived off on the purchase of a new vehicle.
As a disincentive, increased re-registration fees would be applicable for vehicles 15 years or older from the initial date registration.

Significance:

It will lead to creation of more scrap yards in the country and effective recovery of waste from old vehicles.
India had to import 23,000 crore worth of scrap steel during the last year as India’s scrapping is not productive and India is not able to recover energy and rare earth metals.
In the new fitness centers, 35 thousand people will get employment and an investment of Rs 10,000 crores will be pumped in.
Prices of auto components would fall substantially with the recycling of metal and plastic parts.
As scrapped materials will get cheaper the production cost of the vehicle manufacturers will also reduce.
It will play a major role in modernising the vehicular population as it will help in phasing out the unfit and polluting vehicles across the country and promote a circular economy and waste to wealth campaign.
As older vehicles pollute the environment 10 to 12 times more, and estimated that 17 lakh medium and heavy commercial vehicles are more than 15 years old.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT

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