Vehicular emissions is an obvious factor behind ever rising air pollution levels in the country. Moving to a higher emission norm may seem to be a way ahead but what about the older cars? The harsh reality of our country is that the moment a city moves up to a higher emission level, the older vehicles percolate to smaller towns (where the new norms are usually introduced at a later date). This is where a need for a scrapping policy comes into play.
As per an article on Business Standard, a draft scrapping policy has been made and will be put forward in the public domain for review in a few days. Apart from this the country will also be moving to BSVI emission norms from April 2020, a move which in itself is a very controversial one.
Here’s what the Union Minister Nitin Gadkari had to say:
“We will put the vehicle scrapping policy on website within a week to seek suggestions and based on that we will seek Finance Ministry’s approval. Once approved, it will be sent for the Cabinet nod. We will set up industrial clusters near ports that will manufacture automobile parts at half the market rate. The labour cost in India is less. Car parts like copper, steel, plastic and aluminium would be available in plenty from old vehicles, which would be recycled at these clusters.”
The automotive industry has a turnover of Rs 4.5 lakh crores right now and is expected to grow to 20 lakh crores in the next 5 years. This will be boosted by the new scrapping policy.
So now we have a policy to help the manufacturers as well by removing the older cars from the roads. What good is it going to do to you as an end user? The proposal includes that the owner of the vehicle can get financial incentive of up to Rs 1.5 lakh on vehicles older than 10 years. This amount is though for large vehicles like trucks. For small cars the amount will be around Rs 30,000.