Govt vehicles older than 15 years to be scrapped: Centre

New Delhi: From April, all government vehicles that have completed 15 years will automatically lose their right to ply on roads as their certificate of registration will expire, according to a new rule of the central government.

In an effort to weed out old, polluting and potentially less-safe vehicles from Indian roads, Nitin Gadkariled Ministry of Road

Transport and Highways has already rolled out the vehicle scrapping policy. The draft notification of the policy was issued in November.

Any vehicle which is 15 or more years old, owned by governments, in the centre or state, Union Territories, public sector undertakings, municipal bodies or any organisation owned or controlled by the gov- ernment, will have to retire, the new rule states. If the registration of such old vehi- cles was renewed before they attained the age of 15, such registration certificates will also au- tomatically be deemed cancelled and they will have to retire after a lapse of 15 years from initial registration.

As part of implementing the policy, the Central government felt that the government should show the way by scrapping its own old vehicles.

Such vehicles, numbering in the thousands across India, are to be scrapped only through registered vehicle scrapping facilities as mandated in the policy. However, special purpose vehicles owned by governments, like armoured and other specialised vehicles used for operational purposes for defence of the country and for the maintenance of law and order and internal security, have been kept out of the ambit of the new rules.