Amrutha Avasarala, Pune
The Telangana government announced the car scrapping policy for the state on Tuesday, the first step in the implementation of the Centre’s car Fleet Modernisation Policy.
Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar made it clear at the Secretariat on Tuesday. The state government is keen on building an ecosystem for phasing out “end-of-life” vehicles in the interest of road safety as well as the environment. According to the Central government rules, “end of life” vehicles are the ones that are more than 15 years old in the case of non-transport and more than eight years old in the case of transport.
Besides these, the state government will provide two variants of incentives to any entity who scrapes their vehicle voluntarily. First, motor vehicle tax rebate, and second, one-time remission of certain duties.
The exemption on tax is available while purchasing a new car of the same type with a certificate of deposit. The one-time exemption encompasses fees payable, such as compulsory quarterly tax fine and green tax collected upon scrapping cars.
Government-owned automobiles older than 15 years from date of registration shall also be scrapped.
While that was on, the state government gave administrative sanction for putting in place 37 Automated Testing Stations (ATS) at Rs 8 crores each working out to Rs 296 crores through Roads and Buildings Department. The government has also sanctioned construction of 15 ATS in Phase 1, one for the headquarters of each of the former districts and additional four ATS in Greater Hyderabad or the HMDA Area.
Under Rule 175 of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules of 1989, the government has decided to discontinue the manual fitness testing of the vehicles at Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) wherein ATS are operating .
The government has nominated the transport commissioner as the registering authority and the special chief secretary to the government as the Appellate Authority for the Recognition, Regulation and Control of the ATS.
Including this, the state government has also came up with solutions to adapt Sarathi and Vahan software in the course of the upcoming 12 months. “There should be scientific scrapping and environmentally clean and safe scrapping of automobiles, and that is the quality it will ensure,” he added.
Transparency will further help him say that smooth working of VVMP hinges on the transparent functioning of Automated Fitness Testing Stations. It will help create a robust ecosystem for safe roads and a structured scrapping policy for better overall road safety for all its users.