The focus on reducing carbon emissions and high pollution levels certainly found focus in the Budget 2023. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the government will allocate additional funds to replace old vehicles and ambulances used by both central and state governments.
The Vehicle Scrappage Policy which was introduced in Budget 2021 aimed to replace old polluting vehicles. The policy called for fitness tests to be conducted on private vehicles older than 20 years, and commercial vehicles older than 15 years.
The government also planned to setup automated fitness testing centres.
The Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Nitin Gadkari had announced that the government aims to scrap 9 lakh old vehicles owned by Central and State governments from April 1, 2023.
The Scrappage Policy aims to incentivise trading off of old polluting vehicles and replacing them with new vehicles to reduce emissions. Scrappage of old vehicles will provide customers up to 25 percent tax rebate on road tax on their new vehicle purchases.
Sumit Issar, MD, Mahindra Accelo & Director, MMRPL “Cero (Mahindra MSTC Recycling) warmly welcomes the budget announcement made on the central government offering to assist state governments in replacing old vehicles under the Vehicle Scrappage Policy. This is a step in the right direction for implementation of policy announced by MoRTH and we expect this financial help to be utilised in replacing old vehicles as well as waiving off dues on old vehicles intended for scrapping.”
