Three registered vehicle scrapping facilities and automated testing units for the “end-of-life” vehicles have been approved by the state transport department.
The facilities have been decided to set up one in Kheda, and one in Bhavnagar each with a cost of Rs17 crore per facility. Both of them will be constructed on a one acre of land each. The policy of vehicle scrapping shall oversee two phases, one for only commercial vehicles that shall begin on April 1, 2023, the other that will include private vehicles as well and shall begin on June 1, 2024.
The new policy also states that vehicles of more than 15 years of age will have to be compulsorily tested at the automated testing units. The vehicle can only be registered if it passes the fitness and emission tests, but if the verdict says that the vehicle has reached the end of its life, then the vehicle will have to be scrapped.
After the test, the limitations of the vehicle will be specified. The owner can still use the vehicle, provided he/ She gets the repairs done and gets it tested again. Even if the vehicle is specified as an “end of life” vehicle, the owner has another chance to go to RTO where the vehicle is registered for an appeal.
Sources say that each of the registered vehicle scrapping facility shall be linked with the Vahan portal. This means documents shall be uploaded on the portal, and if the RVSF de-registers the vehicle, the concerned RTO can cancel the registration. Statistics say that 38% of the vehicles traveling on the streets of Gujarat are 15 years old, and in Ahmedabad, 33% of the vehicles are at least 15 years old.
All vehicles of 15 years and above shall go through the fitness test. An official of the state transport department revealed that as of March 31, 2022, the department had 3 crore of registered vehicles out of which 1.2 crore will complete 15 years in 2023. The city of Ahmedabad will include 17 lakh of the 50 lakh registered in the city. Officials also shared that 9% of these are commercial vehicles including city and state transport buses.
The transport department officials also clarified that after 2023,private vehicles will have to be checked every 5 years after they finish 15 years. Transport vehicles on the other hand, will have to be inspected every year, again after 2023.
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