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Vehicle manufacturers will soon have to take the onus of ensuring scrapping old vehicles under the Steel Scrap Policy issued by the Ministry of Steel.
The policy said that Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and the Department of Heavy Industries are working towards ‘Extended Producer Responsibility’ by requiring the vehicle manufacturers to incentivise scrapping of unfit vehicles in exchange for price discounts for purchase of new vehicles.
“The MoRTH will identify unfit vehicles, through an appropriate testing system, which do not meet the road worthiness standards, for scrapping. MoRTH will take necessary steps to ensure effective enforcement of Pollution and Fitness Regulations by State and Central Agencies. Further, MoRTH to ensure that the authorized vehicle scrapping centres shall have access to the Vahan Portal to de-register vehicles that are to be scrapped either voluntarily or statutorily,” the policy said.
“Based on discussions with MoRTH, it emerges that they would notify their Policy on promoting phasing out of old polluting vehicles within three months,” the policy notified earlier this week said.
According to the policy, the availability of scrap is a major issue in India and in 2017 the deficit was to the tune of 7 million tonnes. This was imported at the cost of more than ₹ 24,500 crores in 2017-2018. The gap between demand and supply is can be reduced in the future and the country may be self-sufficient by 2030, the policy envisaged.
The Policy has aimed setting up an Environmentally Sound Management system for ferrous scrap which can encourage processing & recycling of ferrous scraps through organized and scientific metal scrapping centers across India to minimize dependency on import of scrap and make India self-sufficient in scrap availability.
An official statement said that the policy also aims to promote circular economy in the steel sector. Promotion of a formal and scientific collection, dismantling and processing activities for end of life products that are sources of recyclable scraps also feature in the policy.
The target is to make India a producer of high quality ferrous scrap for quality steel production thus minimising the dependency on imports.
Creation of a mechanism for treating waste streams and residues produced from dismantling and shredding facilities in compliance to Hazardous & Other Wastes (Management & Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2016 is also proposed in the policy.
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