Patna: Owners of old vehicles in Bihar will soon be able to reap the benefits of long-awaited scrap policy, which was enacted last year to deal with the challenges of growing air pollution and road accidents.
The state cabinet had in February 2022 approved the scrap policy and stipulated financial benefits to the vehicle owners, but it remained ineffective for want of authorised agencies, which could crush the used vehicles in to pieces.
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Following the policy framed by the Central government, the state government had also decided to offer incentives for those opting to declare their vehicles older than 15 years as scrap.
“Emboldened by the policy, entrepreneurs have begun setting up four scrap plants in Patna and twelve other cities. Hopefully, at least two scrap centres will become operational in Patna by the end of August,” said a senior officer of the transport department.
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The scrap policy envisages benefits of up to ₹60,000 on purchase of new vehicles by way of monetary relief in road tax and registration charge. “To avail the incentives, the vehicle owners need to apply for declaring their vehicles as scrap before the notified authorities. Once it’s approved, the vehicles will be crushed and reduced as heap of metal at scrapping plant. The certificates issued by the authorised scrapping plants shall be produced in front of vehicle dealers to get the incentives,” said the official.
The transport department official said that the department was mulling the plan of granting one-time road tax benefit of 25% in individual vehicles and 15% for commercial vehicles. “The draft will be finalised in the next couple of weeks for the cabinet approval,” he said, adding that the vehicles owners would be given the choice to retain the registration number of their old vehicles.
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As per the talks in the bureaucratic circles, the government might start sending around 2,000 old vehicles, parked inside offices of different departments, to scrapping plant first. “Bakhtiyarpur scrapping centre, which is installing state-of-the-art machine imported from China and Taiwan, might start first by August end, while three other plants being set up at Barh, Patna City and Bihta may take a few weeks’ more time,” said the official.
Vehicle crushing plants are also being set up by entrepreneurs in Vaishali, Hajipur, Siwan, Banka, Bhagalpur, Darbhanga, Purnia, Gopalganj, Katihar, Samastipur, Madhubani, Saharsa and Madhepura.
