For vehicle scrappage, incentive and not force should be the way, as people with limited income may suffer
In an unprecedented order delivered in 2014, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had prohibited petrol vehicles older than 15 years and diesel vehicles older than 10-year from plying in the National Capital Region (NCR).
The order was upheld by the Supreme Court (SC) in its pronouncement on October 29, 2018.
As for compliance, eight years after the NGT order and four years after SC validation, nearly 4,000,000 such vehicles continue to ply on the roads of the national capital. These include 500,000 diesel-run vehicles and 3,500,000 petrol-run.
The transport authorities have reportedly swung into action impounding around 60 such vehicles every day and sending for scrap. At this pace, it will take 23 years to send them all for scrap. Another 161 years will be needed to junk all petrol-run vehicles taking the total to 184 years.
The above numbers will hold only when the pace (impounding 60 vehicles a day) is sustained throughout the year. In reality, the authorities run the drive for just about three months albeit during the winter when normally the scare of pollution intensifies. This will lead to a more bizarre scenario whereby clearing the entire backlog of 4000,000 vehicles would require 736 years.
This apart, the order is bedeviled with several inconsistencies and contradictions. First, the extant law in Delhi provides for renewal of registration of a petrol run vehicle on completion of 15 years from the date of first registration for a further period of 5 years. If the stance of Delhi government is in sync with the NGT/SC order, it ought to have amended the law to disallow extension of registration. But, it hasn’t; instead, it was contemplating filing a revision petition.
Second, the order infringes on the fundamental right (Article 21) of a person resident in Delhi to lead a decent life - by declaring a vehicle as unfit to run on extraneous consideration (read: likely impact on pollution in the city) ignoring the existing law which permits extension of registration by five years.
Even so, pollution exceeding the prescribed threshold is the net result of a combination of a number of factors such as industrial effluents, dust, and construction. The pollution resulting from vehicular movement is only one of them and can’t be used as a potent argument to penalize vehicle owners to a point of even infringing on their fundamental right to have a decent living.
Majority of the over-aged car owners belong to the middle or lower middle class, their resource position being pretty tight. They had financed the purchase of their vehicle from a loan. Many of them may have only recently completed servicing that loan. Indeed, from 16th year onward is the phase when their stress level begins to ease. If, around the same time, they are forced to scrap the vehicle (courtesy, SC order), and buy a new one, they would have plunged into another round of financial nightmare.
Third, the order seeks to penalize vehicle owners retrospectively. For instance, consider a person who bought a petrol-run car, say, on January 1, 2008. She did her financial calculation on the premise that she would be able to run it for 20 years (original registration for 15 years plus five years for extension), i.e. till January 1, 2028. This was in sync with the prevailing law of the land. Now, in view of the SC order, she will have to junk it prematurely on January 1, 2023.
Fourth, the order presumes that all cars ‘automatically’ become unfit for plying after completing 15 years. Whether a vehicle is fit to run or otherwise, a lot depends on how well it is maintained, its timely upkeep and maintenance; this needs to be tested instead of pronouncing it as unfit based on sweeping generalization and merely because it has reached a certain age.
Fifth, it leads to patent discrimination of vehicle owners in the NCR vis-à-vis those in other states. While the former have no option but to dump their cars on completion of 15 years (even when these are fit to run and meet pollution norms), the latter can continue to run their cars up to 20 years and even beyond.
Meanwhile, on March 18, 2021, the Union Minister for road, transport and highways Nitin Gadkari had announced in the Lok Sabha a ‘voluntary’ vehicle scrappage policy. The policy architecture is founded on two major pillars viz. incentivize owners of aged vehicles to scrap and dis-incentivize hanging on to them.
Under the policy, the owner going for scrap will get 4-6 per cent of ex-showroom price of the new vehicle as compensation (call it scrap compensation); five per cent discount on purchase of the new vehicle; rebate on road tax @25 per cent for personal vehicle (generally, states collect this tax @4%, so 25 per cent rebate comes to one per cent). The policy also moots waiver of the registration fee for new vehicles purchased on production of ‘scrap certificate’ issued against scrapped vehicles.
As for the disincentives for hanging on, the policy suggests hike in fee for renewal of registration (Rs 5000/- for a car & 15 years up from Rs 600/- at present) and fitness certificate renewal fees, stiff penalties for delay in renewals and imposition of the so called ‘green tax’ by states on such vehicles.
All personal vehicles will have to undergo mandatory automated fitness tests after 20 years to ply on the roads (for commercial vehicles, the threshold is 15 years). If they don’t pass, those vehicles will be de-registered and impounded by the transport authorities, pronouncing it as ‘end of life vehicle’. Those more than 15 years but less than 20 years will get registration renewed sans test.
The objective of the policy is to incentivize all aged vehicle owners irrespective of their location, pan India, to dispose of in the interest of protecting the environment. This is the way to go though there is need for some tweaking to make it sufficiently attractive; for instance, exempting new vehicles purchased against scrapped old vehicles from levy of Goods and Services Tax or GST – currently levied at 28 per cent – as suggested by Gadkari sometime back.
But, the order of SC/NGT renders the ‘voluntary’ vehicle scrappage policy infructuous in so far as the NCR is concerned. When there is prohibition on running the car beyond 15 years, the very mention of the word ‘voluntary’ is laughable. The Union Government should take urgent steps to correct the anomalous situation created by the order. It may either approach the top court to relent; alternatively, bring about necessary amendment in the Motor Vehicles Act (MVA) to reflect the policy intent, i.e., use fitness as the sole criterion for deciding ‘whether a vehicle can be allowed to run’. However, the transport authorities must ensure that only those vehicles which pass the test—as per specified norms—are allowed.
(The author is a policy analyst)
