Most preferring West UP for vehicle scrappage units
As per a report, 15 registration certificates have already been issued for setting up the scrapping centres. These units are expected to bring in investments worth over ₹200 crore.
Even as adequate registered vehicle scrapping facilities are a prerequisite to the success of the Centre’s ambitious policy to phase out old vehicles, most demands for setting up such units in Uttar Pradesh are largely from the western districts of the state, officials dealing with the issue said.
A report sourced from the transport department showed that 15 registration certificates have already been issued for setting up the scrapping centres and as many similar applications are being processed.
The transport department started inviting applications for the registration of such centres more than a year ago.
Barring five or six of them, all other centres have been set up or are proposed to be set up in western UP districts. As per the report, five of the 15 registered scrapping centres have already become operational. They belong to Mahindra, MSTC India Recycling Pvt Ltd (Gautam Buddha Nagar), Maruti Suzuki India Pvt Ltd (Gautam Buddha Nagar), Bharat Motors (Bulandshahr), Go Green ELV Handlers (Baghpat) and Global Ultratech (Rampur), and all are set up in western UP.
The remaining 10 under-construction units are of V Ventures (Agra), Jai Hind Vehicle Scrap (Amroha), Saral Auto Scrapping India Pvt Ltd (Ghaziabad), Bharat Scrap Facilities (Bulandshahr), AS Scrap Yard Pvt Ltd (Muzaffarnagar), Nirvan Scrapers (Baghpat), Simran Recycling Pvt Ltd (Saharanpur), RR and R Mechanic Pvt Ltd (Sambhal), Restore Health Medical Care Pvt Ltd (Auraya) and Mohit Agencies (Kanpur Dehat).
The 15 firms together are expected to invest more than ₹200 crore in creating scrappage facilities in the state while the request of 15 other firms for the grant of the licence is being processed by the registering authority.
“As of now, 15 new applications for the grant of registration certificates are under consideration and a majority of them are for the western UP districts,” a senior transport official said.
Among the 15 applications under process, three are for Bulandshahr, two each for Lucknow and Raebarelli, and one each for Muzaffarnagar, Mathura, Moradabad, Firozabad, Azamgarh, Meerut and Ghaziabad.
Explaining the possible reason for more firms showing interest in the western districts, another official said, “It could be due to the fact that unlike in other places, the age of vehicles has been fixed in Delhi and the NCR, where diesel and petrol vehicles must be retired if they are 10 years and 15 years old, respectively.”
As per the transport department’s notification, vehicles whose registration cannot be renewed or are not fit for the road, those destroyed in fire, riots, accidents or any natural calamity, and those seized and auctioned by enforcement agencies, will be considered for scrappage.
Under the Centre’s vehicle scrappage policy that is applicable to all states, all commercial vehicles must be de-registered after 15 years in case they fail the fitness test; private vehicles will meet with the same fate after 20 years of their first registration.
Meanwhile, the maximum age for government vehicles has also been fixed. According to the U.P. government’s policy notified in light of the Centre’s guidelines, all government vehicles, including those of corporations and public undertakings, will be deregistered and scrapped after 15 years from the date of their first registration.
