Context:

The Government recently announced the details for the country’s long-awaited vehicle scrapping policy.

About the Policy:

• The policy, which also recommends the mandatory scrapping of all government vehicles over 15 years old, applies only to four-wheeled vehicles.
• Deregistration: Commercial vehicles be deregistered after 15 years in case of failure to get the fitness certificate.
  • As a disincentive measure, increased fees for fitnesscertificate and fitness test may be applicable for commercial vehicles 15 year onward from the date of initial registration.
  • The private vehicles are deregistered after 20 years if found unfi t or in case of a failure to renew the registration certifi cate.
  • All vehicles of the Central Government, State Government, Municipal Corporation, Panchayats, State Transport Undertakings, Public Sector Undertakings and autonomous bodies with the Union and State Governments may be de-registered and scrapped after 15 years from the date of registration.
• Incentives: 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 certifi cate.
• Scrapping Facilities: The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways will promote the setting up of Registered Vehicle Scrapping Facilities (RVSFs) across India and will encourage public and private participation for the opening up of such centres. Efforts are also being made to set up integrated scrapping facilities across India.
• Some of the identifi ed places include Alang( globalcentre for shipbreaking) in Gujarat, where it is being planned to develop a highly specialized centre for scrapping among many other potential centres, where different scrapping technologies can be synergized.