Respite For Old Vehicles Likely As Niti Aayog Proposes New Plan

Think tank suggests massive hike in re-registration fees as well as removing mandatory scrapping policy.

Representational image of old cars. 

Photo: iStock

If you own a petrol car that’s over 15 years old or a diesel that’s over 10 years of age, there is a silver lining. Government think tank Niti Aayog has proposed introducing a hefty re-registration fee for old vehicles and doing away with the mandatory scrapping policy it had suggested earlier.

According to a CNBC-TV18 report quoting a source, the think tank has had several rounds of consultations with various ministries under the Niti Aayog National Mission for Transformative Mobility.

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Instead of promoting vehicle scrappage, which would indirectly promote new vehicle sales at the cost of old vehicles, the body suggests allowing older vehicles to ply, but introduce a hefty re-registration cost, which will discourage ownership. Here’s how this proposal may affect your vehicle ownership in the long term.

How Does It Affect Consumers?

According to the report Niti Aayog is considering charging two to three times the registration charges for the vehicle to re-register it. This could vary from Rs 15,000 for passenger cars to Rs 35,000 for commercial vehicles.

The think tank is also proposing a mandatory fitness assessment every six months for older vehicles. They will have to pass the relevant emissions norms as well (depending on the year they were built).

It wants to discourage use of older vehicles, but not at the cost of increasing consumption of new vehicles.

Hence, only owners who have really maintained their vehicles or want to hang on to them for their own reasons, will take the trouble to renew fitness every six months and pay a hefty re-registration fee.

So far there is no scrapping policy in place. The Delhi-NCR region has banned plying of diesel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol vehicles older than 15 years in the region. The RTOs are not issuing no-objection certificates to diesel vehicles older than 10 and petrol vehicles older than 15 years either, leaving owners with no choice other than to scrap them.

While this is still a proposal, the chances of it becoming a law are slim. There’s still the National Green Tribunal to deal with before clearances are obtained, as this is the body that imposed the ban on old vehicles in the first place.