NEW DELHI: From April 2023, all vehicles owned by the Central and state governments, including the buses owned by transport corporations that are older than 15 years will have to be scrapped. The road transport ministry has issued a draft notification proposing this fresh timeline amid lukewarm response from private vehicle owners to the voluntary vehicle scrapping policy.
While for personal and commercial vehicles, scrapping policy is voluntary, for government agencies, including the PSUs and autonomous bodies, it will be mandatory. Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday said he has approved the proposed timeline for retiring the old government vehicles. He has also been advocating for modernisation of the bus fleets run by state government agencies.
In January 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had suggested the road transport ministry to implement the policy for government vehicles from April 2022 as it is a low hanging fruit considering this can be implemented quickly. But several states were not on board to extend this scheme to buses run by state transport corporations considering their bad financial health, TOI has learnt.
Sources said the Centre has held discussions recently with states for faster implementation of the policy and has asked all the states to give the details of their vehicles which have completed 15 years since registration. They added that though the number of such vehicles may not be huge, government agencies can make a big beginning. The road transport ministry has also issued an advisory to the state government to phase out old and polluting vehicles.
“If you look at introduction of electric cars, the government took the lead to go for them and to create a demand for the industry. Similarly, in the case of scrapping of old and polluting vehicles, we have to take the lead,” said a senior government functionary.
Officials said in recent weeks there have been several high-level meetings involving the PMO, Niti Aayog and finance ministry to push the implementation of the vehicle scrapping policy. They added that options of how states can be incentivised to modernise their bus fleet and retire old ones are also being looked into.