China is one the largest developing and productive countries in the world. The country has seen growth in infrastructure, production of various things like electronics and vehicles, population and last but not at all the least, pollution! With great development comes great pollution in various forms. We recently reported how China is planning to up its vehicle manufacturing capabilities in a matter of few years but now it has also been learnt that the Chinese government has started taking important steps to curb pollution.
China deals with a huge smog problem and hence the Chinese government is planning to scrap those vehicles that do not conform with the country’s exhaust emissions standards. Around 6 million of these vehicles will be phased off by the end of 2014 and almost 20% of them are from the cities of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province. These vehicles will be scrapped in a phased manner and once these 6 million cars are eliminated, the government will come up with a plan to phase out another 5 million cars from Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei regions starting next year.
The Chinese government has stated that around 31.1% of air pollution in Beijing has come from exhaust fumes emitted from vehicles. The country is working hard to reduce pollution levels along with getting energy savings and low-carbon development in the next two years. It is unclear as to how will owners of scrapped vehicles be compensated, but we think that the government must have surely come up with a plan for dealing with that too. Either owners will be given some monetary compensation or they will be offered select new cars at subsidised rates.
India’s situation is quite like that of China’s. We have a lot of old vehicles running on the roads, which cause a lot of pollution. However, there is no law which prohibits the use of old vehicles on Indian roads. Vehicles older than 15 years old should be scrapped completely (including trucks and buses), which will help the stringent pollution norms in play currently to have some value.
