UP has over 20% of India’s old vehicles

More than 20% of India’s total old vehicles that may qualify for the Centre’s newly unveiled scrappage policy are in Uttar Pradesh alone, people dealing with the issue in the transport department here revealed

More than 20% of India’s total old vehicles that may qualify for the Centre’s newly unveiled scrappage policy are in Uttar Pradesh alone, people dealing with the issue in the transport department here revealed.

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The policy seeks to offer incentives to people who opt to get their personal/private vehicles older than 20 years or commercial vehicles older than 15 years scrapped.

“In UP alone, there are more than 21 lakh such vehicles which is around 20% of the total 1 crore such vehicles identified in the entire country even as more than 50 lakh more such vehicles in UP will become eligible for the policy after five years,” a senior transport department official said.

The Central government on Thursday rolled out the vehicle scrappage policy that was first announced by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech in a bid to give a push to the automobile industry as well as reduce pollution on roads.

As per the new policy, commercial vehicles will be de-registered after 15 years and private or personal vehicles will be de-registered after 20 years, if found unfit or they fail to get a fresh registration certificate or in case of a failure to renew the registration certificate. The policy, at the same time, also offers several incentives and discounts for replacing old vehicles with new ones.

Under the current rules, all personal and commercial vehicles are registered for 15 and 10 years, respectively, and have to seek registration after every five years thereafter.

The transport department’s latest report, accessed by HT, shows that there are more than 21.23 lakh non-transport (personal/private) and transport (commercial vehicles) that are older than 20 years and 15 years respectively.

Of them, around 19.20 lakh are personal/private vehicles alone. Commercial vehicles in this category constitute only a little more than 2.35 lakh.

The report further shows that the largest number of personal vehicles that are older than 20 years are registered in Lucknow (about 3.23 lakh) only. The other UP cities with a sizeable number of such vehicles are Kanpur (1.87 lakh), Varanasi (1.32 lakh), Aligarh (95,600), Ghaziabad (80,000) and Prayagraj (75,500).

The number of commercial vehicles older than 15 years is also the highest in Lucknow at 14,200 followed by Kanpur (11,200), Prayagraj (10,300) and Varanasi (10,100). Another data available with the department reveals the total number of personal/private vehicles (as on December 31, 2020) that had completed 15 years of age from the date of their first registration and needed fresh registration for next five years stood at around 50 lakh.

“This only means that all these 50 lakh vehicles also will become eligible for the voluntary or compulsory scrappage policy five years from now,” the official said.

The state government, he said, may soon issue a notification as a follow-up to the Centre’s announcement of the vehicle scrappage policy.