Draft vehicle scrapping policy to be ready in a fortnight

New Delhi, Aug 28 (PTI) Aiming to scrap nearly 15 lakhheavy vehicles that are more than 15 years old in the firstphase, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has said the draftpolicy will be ready in a fortnight. "We intend to scrap 15-year-old about 12-15 lakh heavyvehicles, mostly trucks and buses, in the first phase of ourproposed Voluntary Vehicle Fleet Modernisation Programme(V-VMP). The draft policy would be ready in a fortnight," RoadTransport and Highways Minister Gadkari told PTI. The Minister said 65 per cent of the vehicular pollutionis caused by heavy vehicles and scrapping of these will bedone at industrial clusters like Kandla to be set up under thegovernment’s ambitious Sagarmala project. Gadkari had called on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley lastweek in this regard, who had suggested making the policymandatory, not voluntary. The Finance Minister had also said that instead of excisetax exemptions, funds will be provided for this in the Budget. According to Gadkari, the policy may provide benefits ofRs 2-3 lakh for every heavy vehicle to be scrapped. The draft V-VMP policy had earlier proposed to bringvehicles bought on or before March 31, 2005, numbering about28 million, under its purview. The government is also expected to take permission fromthe GST Council as "the tax structure is likely to change". He said the benefits of the policy include additional netrevenue of over Rs 21,000 crore on account of additionalautomobile sales, besides crude oil savings of Rs 7,700 croredue to improved fuel efficiency. Once the policy is finalised, it is estimated to resultin domestic steel scrap generation worth Rs 5,500 crore tosubstitute imported scrap. The other positive, Gadkari said, is employmentgeneration as there will be huge demand for workforce forscrapping/recycling operations and automobile manufacturing. The automobile industry’s turnover in the country is Rs4.5 lakh crore, he said, adding that making these industrialclusters will boost job creation. He termed the policy as a "win-win" for government,stakeholders and common masses. According to the ministry, the proposed policy has thepotential to reduce vehicular emission by 25-30 per cent andsave oil consumption by 3.2 billion litres a year. PTI NAMBAL ARD JMMKJ