While the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has banned all diesel vehicles older than 10 years from plying in the National Capital Region (NCR), the move will also impact those diesel vehicles that are approaching the “now-dreaded” age of 10 years. According to second-hand car dealers, sharp depreciation is expected in the sale of cars which are approaching the age of 10 years.
“The prices of old diesel cars have already witnessed a sharp fall since last year’s NGT order. Now that such vehicles face the threat of de-registration as well if they are not sold by the time they reach the age of 10 years, one can expect further drop in prices,” said Manish, a car dealer from south Delhi.
Honey Narula of Narula Motors said that they have been getting a large number of calls enquiring about second-hand diesel vehicles. “People from other States are calling as if people in Delhi are selling their old diesel cars for free. But there is no such panic so far. However, it is true that the prices of old vehicles will certainly go down after the NGT order. A car which comes at an ex-showroom price of Rs10 lakh, and gets normally sold at Rs5 lakh in the resale market after eight-nine years of use, will now be sold for as low as Rs2 lakh,” he said.
A nine-year-old car will have only one year to ply on the roads of Delhi after which it will be de-registered by the Transport Department unless it is sold outside NCR. In such a scenario, such a vehicle will hardly get any buyers in the city.
“There will be no buyers in Delhi for such a vehicle. Who will invest in a vehicle that has life of only one yearIJ Such vehicles will have to be sold outside Delhi. And a buyer from another State will come to Delhi to buy a vehicle only if he is getting it at a really low price,” said Narula.
He added that a vehicle sold to another State will have to pay a road tax of 8 per cent on the ex-showroom price of the vehicle. “This means that for a vehicle that costs Rs10 lakh for the new model, one will have to pay around Rs1 lakh as road tax. Transporting the vehicle to the State where it has to be registered will also cost around Rs20,000. After accommodating all this, a buyer from another State will buy the vehicle from Delhi only if he gets a hefty discount. So if he gets the same vehicle for Rs5 lakh if he buys in his own State, he won’t pay more than Rs2-2.5 lakh considering buying from Delhi will incur extra expenses up to Rs1.2 to Rs1.5 lakh,” Narula added.