Bihar to get vehicle scrapping centres by Sept: Officials

At least two vehicle scrapping centres will be operational in Bihar by September and the vehicle owners will be able to reap the benefits of long-awaited scrap policy in the state, officials familiar with the development said on Sunday.

In its bid to counter the challenges of growing air pollution and road accidents, the state cabinet had in February last year announced its scrap policy, based on the one approved by the central government, and decided to offer incentives for those opting to declare their vehicles older than 15 years as scrap. However, the policy remained ineffective till date, as there is no authorised agency to crush the old vehicles and declare them scrap.

Reacting to the development, a senior transport department officer said: “Encouraged by the policy, entrepreneurs have started setting up four scrap plants in Patna and 12 other cities. Hopefully, at least two scrap centres will become operational in Patna by August end.”

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 before the notified authorities for declaring their vehicles as scrap. Once approved, the vehicles will be crushed at the scrapping plant. The certificates issued by the authorised scrapping plants will be produced in front of vehicle dealers to get the incentives,” said another official on anonymity.

The transport department official quoted above said that the department was mulling over the plan of granting one-time road tax benefit of 25% for individual vehicles and 15% in case of commercial vehicles. “The draft will be finalised in the next couple of weeks for the cabinet approval,” he said, adding that the vehicle owners would be given the choice to retain the registration number of their old vehicles.

According to another official privy to the developments, 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 more weeks,” 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, said the official.