Indian government to phase out 15-year old trucks and buses

The Indian government is formulating a policy to phase out trucks and buses over 15-years old, and provide financial incentives.

The Government of India will introduce a policy to mandatorily phase out and retire all trucks and buses currently plying on Indian roads which are over 15-years old. The government will also provide financial incentives to owners who will replace the old vehicles for new ones.

In the first phase of the move, the Government will try and cover nearly 11.5 lakh heavy trucks and busses. The second phase is expected to cover 60 lakh vehicles.

A meeting between Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley and Transport Minister, Nitin Gadkari, on Wednesday, discussed the issues the government currently faces to execute the phasing out of old and polluting heavy trucks and buses in India.

Following which Gadkari was reported to have said that the Finance Minister feels that scrapping of pre-bharat stage vehicles should be mandatory and not voluntary. However, the he does not support the reduction of excise duty as an incentive, but is willing to make a budget provision for a direct cash incentive.

This initiative by the centre comes at a time when the the entire country as a whole, especially the major metropolitan cities like Delhi NCR is suffering from issues of air pollution. The first phase of the move will include only old vehicles which make up 2.5% of the all vehicles that qualify in the category are reportedly responsible for 60% of vehicular pollution.

Reports claim that the finance ministry feels that unless the move is made mandatory, owners will not phase out their old trucks, which is why the policy should be made as an option.

The cash incentives the government would have to invest in, would surmount to be up to Rs. 4,000 crore. However, the sale of new vehicles could collect an overall revenue of around Rs. 18,000 crore for the government which is significantly more that the invest it is required to make. Additionally, newer trucks and buses are more fuel efficient and that would lead to major savings in imports of crude oil.

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