The government wants people to scrap their 15-year old vehicles but is not ready to offer them attractive benefits or incentives.
India wants to move towards a brighter and greener future and since this country is infested with old and polluting vehicles of all types, it is going to be a not-so-easy task. The Delhi government passed a notification that all vehicles over the age of 15 years will have to be scrapped but it seems that there is still a long way to go before this rule starts getting enforced. There are many reasons for this. First of all, whenever people use a certain vehicle for a long time, they are bound to be emotionally attached to that vehicle. Apart from that, we have seen various cases where people actually don’t mind spending a huge packet on maintaining their old vehicles rather than selling them off.
Another significant reason for this difficult task is the fact that the government is not offering attractive incentives or benefits to people who are ready to scrap their vehicles. A car owner would be entitled to Rs. 25,000/- while a 2-wheeler owner would get just Rs. 10,000/- and honestly we too feel that the government could have offered something more. Heck, even if you scrap your vehicle on your own, you might possibly fetch more than what the ministry is offering.
The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) had asked the government to offer a 50% rebate on excise duty, VAT and road tax to those citizens who are scrapping their vehicles and going for new ones. The finance ministry stated that this option might not be feasible for them. When we compare such scenarios with foreign countries, it comes to light that their governments are much more supportive and hard-working for such causes and they offer very attractive incentives to people.
