National Green Tribunal (NGT) has urged the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to make a quick move and announce a well laid out scrappage policy for vehicles that have crossed the age of 15 years.
NGT has questioned the long year-long delay that has followed the government’s announcement, while the former has still been waiting for a well-structured policy from the ministry.
What is the issue related to the car scrappage policy?
The issues to be addressed here are regarding the scrapping and dumping, necessarily waste management. Sold Waste management is a big enough environmental problem in itself and one which India sees to an extent like not many other countries.
We are already struggling with Solid waste management policies. Now with around 21 million vehicles reaching their end of life by 2025. The issue becomes one holding utter importance demanding undirected attention with stringent policies to be introduced and executed on short notice.
The government promised guidelines regarding the same, almost a year ago. Since then, This issue has not seen the light of the day. There have been some minor announcements but properly laid out guidelines are still awaited.
The prompt to the government comes from a bench from NGT which was headed by the Tribunal’s chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel. The bench has reiterated an urgent need to establish guidelines and mechanisms to be undertaken while considering the car scrapping process. These guidelines ought to be accountable for sustainable environmental needs.
The official statement from the bench
"There is no tangible explanation for the long delay in issuing the necessary notification. Making allowance for the pandemic, we grant further time of two months for issuing a requisite notification.”
Brands like Toyota and Suzuki have started working on the required establishments
The bench has made a very clear statement demanding action from the government in the next two months. Companies have already started gearing up for the execution of this task with carmakers like Toyota and Maruti announcing the establishment of scrapping plants by 2021. The tribunals’ worries are further justified because these brands and other scrapping centres will need to follow a strict and well laid out mechanism to avoid any sort of chaos.
Author’s Take
It is high time that the government takes a firm action over the concerns raised by NGT because, In today’s fast-changing world, 15 years of life of a vehicle is pretty much enough to exhaust its productive capabilities. The market is changing quickly and the question of environment conservation also raises a concern over the authority among their responsibilities.
15 years is a long period and vehicles which made it to the roads before a certain time period are not fit to be allowed to run on streets, the damage they incur on the environment poses almost exponential damage as compared to the new vehicles which are manufactured keeping the latest regulations in mind.
