Indian govt mulls mandatory phasing out 15-yr-old trucks, buses

Financial incentives will be given to those who replace these vehicles with new ones -a move that may cost the government around Rs 4,000 crore.

The government will soon formulate a policy to mandatorily phase out nearly 11.5 lakh trucks and buses which are over 15 years old. Financial incentives will be given to those who replace these vehicles with new ones -a move that may cost the government around Rs 4,000 crore.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley and transport minister Nitin Gadkari discussed the whole range of issues relating to the phasing out of old polluting vehicles on Wednesday.

Sources said while old trucks and heavy vehicles would be covered in the first phase, four-wheelers over 15 years -around 60 lakh in all -would be covered in the second.

“The finance minister felt scrapping of pre-Bharat Stage vehicles should be mandatory instead of voluntary . The finance ministry is not in favour of reducing excise duty as incentive but they could make a Budget provision for direct cash incentive,” Gadkari said.

They said old heavy vehicles would be phased out first because they make up only 2.5% of vehicles in that category but are responsible for 60% of the vehicular pollution.TOI has learned that the finance ministry is of the view that people won’t retire their old trucks and buses unless the scheme is made mandatory .

Sources said the transport ministry pointed out how the overall revenue collection in the form of excise tax would be approximately Rs 18,000 crore to Rs 19,000 crore due to the sale of new vehicles, and it would be much more than what the government would end up providing as cash incentive. Moreover, replacing the fuelguzzling old vehicles with new ones would result in savings of Rs 7,700 crore annually for reduction in crude oil import, the ministry said in its presentation.

Officials privy to the discussions said the transport ministry would take the regulatory route for the scrapping policy and it had the requisite mandate. The age cap for phasing out of vehicles would be fixed after wider consultations. “A committee of secretaries will be set up to come out with modalities for the operationalisation of the scheme,” a source said.

Indian govt mulls mandatory phasing out 15-yr-old trucks, buses

Source: http://goo.gl/y8JtDI