A recent survey conducted by LocalCircles has brought to the front that many vehicle owners are not happy with the criteria for the scrapping of end-of-life vehicles. The vehicle scrappage policy was introduced by the central government in a bid to not just push the sale of new vehicles but to also remove old and polluting vehicles off the road. The policy called for vehicles to undergo mandatory fitness testing at the end of 15 years for commercial vehicles and 20 years for passenger cars – with only vehicles passing the required fitness tests being allowed to be re-registered. Following this the vehicle will be required to undergo the process every 5 years or if it fails the fitness tests it should be scrapped.
Based on the survey conducted, from a total of 10,543 votes, 57 per cent of respondents felt that the scrappage criteria should be based squarely on the km covered. A further 18 per cent felt that vehicles should meet two criteria of age and distance covered while 12 per cent said that vehicles should meet either the age or distance covered criteria. The distance criteria in the survey were set at 2 lakh km for commercial vehicles (CVs) and 1.5 lakh km for passenger vehicles. The age criteria for scrappage was 15 years for passenger vehicles and 20 years for CVs.
Additionally, based on a total of 15,706 votes, 36 per cent respondents felt that they should receive tax deduction equivalent to 10 per cent of the original vehicle purchase invoice or average list price of the vehicle being scrapped. Presently owners are to be compensated between 4-6 per cent of the ex-showroom value of the scrapped vehicle though it is not in the form of tax deduction. Meanwhile 29 per cent of respondents felt that the tax deduction should be equivalent to 50 per cent of the road tax paid on a new vehicle.
The mandatory implementation of fitness testing and the recent revision of its pricing is also expected to make long term vehicle ownership more expensive. Keeping this in mind 51 per cent of households that responded the survey said that they would either reduce the number of vehicles owned or keep the bare minimum number of vehicles with any excess demand being filled by app-based taxi services. 34 per cent meanwhile said that they would replace their ageing vehicles but would keep the number of vehicles they own at a constant.
Survey respondents felt that distance covered by vehicles should also be considered in the scrappage criteria
The survey received a total of 34,000 responses from consumers across 291 districts of the country with a large portion coming from Tier 1 cities. LocalCircle said that all respondents were validated Indian citizens who had registered with the website.
While the respondents only comprised of a select small group, it does hint at a lack of enthusiasm from car owners towards the new vehicle scrappage policy. This would also be a blow to the country's plans to continue to reduce carbon emissions and reach net carbon zero by 2070 with vehicle recycling a crucial step towards reducing emissions by removing old and polluting vehicles from plying on roads. As per a Centre for Science and Environment(CSE) forecast, India is expected to have as many as 20 million near end-of-life vehicles on its roads by 2025.
