More than 11,000 vehicles scrapped till March 31 this year: Nitin Gadkari

Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday informed the Parliament that a total of 11,025 vehicles have been scrapped till March 31 this year by the registered vehicle scrapping facilities. These include 7,750 private units and 3,275 government units. He noted that 24 states/UTs have a total of 2,56,935 government-owned vehicles that are older than 15 years.

In a written reply to the Parliament, the minister informed that the central government has provided incentives to state governments for implementation of the Vehicle Scrapping Policy. He added that the scheme for special assistance to states for capital investment has been extended for the financial year 2023-24 while the incentive amoun has been increased to ₹3,000 crore.

Further, there is a waiver of liabilities on old vehicles, providing tax concessions to individuals for scrapping of old vehicles and setting up of automated vehicle testing facilities.

Last month, Gadkari virtually inaugurated Tata Motor's vehicle scrapping facility in Jaipur. At the event, Gadkari noted that the scrappage policy enables removal of older and unfit vehicles and introduction of new lesser polluting vehicles in a phased manner. "It is estimated that the automotive demand generated by the scrapping policy will lead to additional GST revenue of ₹40,000 crore to the government and the raw material cost for new cars will go down by 30 per cent," he stated.

He also he informed that the government is working towards making India a global automobile manufacturing hub and the domestic industry is expected to be worth ₹15 lakh crore in the near term. He added that the automobile sector currently contributes to 7.1 per cent of the nation's GDP with the industry size at around ₹7.8 lakh crore.