Scrapping of old vehicles seems difficult

The central government announced that the old vehicle scrapping policy would be announced shortly and it is in the final stages of approval and may be tabled in Parliament for legislation .No doubt it is an innovative policy and it aims at the replacement of old vehicles with new ones to stimulate the slack automobile vehicle sales . The policy if implemented effectively, all vehicles completed 15-years age have be scrapped which paves way for the condemnation of obsolete and high polluting vehicles.

The idea is good but can it be implemented in India? As far as 4-wheelers are concerned, this may be implemented braving the initial resistance from owners. When it comes to light, medium and heavy trucks, the implementation of policy will be stiffly resisted .The all India lorry owners association may reject the policy on several grounds. The first solid ground is it deprives the loss of livelihood of thousands of families depend on transport business.

Take for instance the case of AP , there are about 3 lakh transport vehicles plying in the state and of them about one lakh vehicles have crossed 15-years of age ,if the scrapping policy is implemented strictly ,thousands of families livelihood is immediately affected and many work shop owners ,spare parts shops, old disposal parts sellers who are eking out their livelihood depending solely on the automobile transport industry will be thrown on to the roads.

A good number of old and high polluting vehicles are used locally to transport goods to and fro from godowns to railway stations ,ports vice versa and the vehicles are mostly operated by the owners aged above 50-years and for them it will be a big blow. Apart from this, the drivers who got used to the operation of conservative type transport vehicles who crossed 50 years cannot operate the new transport vehicles fitted with sophisticated operation modes.

Rama Krishna M, Kakinada