Business Standard

India gets its first recycling unit for automated vehicles

- AJAY MODI

If you are looking to get your old car scrapped with a convenienc­e, here is some good news. The country's first automated and organised vehicle scrapping and recycling facility is up and running in Greater Noida, a satellite town outside the capital.

The five-acre facility, set up by M&M through a joint venture with government owned company MSTC, went on stream in April this year. Constructi­on of five more facilities at different locations of the country is underway and expected to become operationa­l by March next year.

The company claims it has got a better than expected response to this new unit.

"We have mostly recycled cars that are 15-20 years old. The facility can also recycle old trucks, buses and consumer durables. We chose the national capital region to start our first facility since the region is estimated to have a large ageing population of vehicles," Sumit Issar, managing director at Mahindra Accelo, told Business Standard. Mahindra Accelo and MSTC have an equal partnershi­p to set up these recycling centres under a company called CERO.

CERO is buying vehicles directly from owners and also at auctions. The facility evaluates the vehicle and recycles steel, batteries, electronic­s, engine parts and other metals, etc. Issar said the company has managed to sell the recycled steel to domestic industry for re-rolling. He, however, declined to share the number of vehicles recycled so far but said the response has been good. He expects the facility to achieve a full capacity utilisatio­n by March next year. The unit can scrap and recycle around 500 units a month.

CERO promises to take care of the entire process from towing a vehicle to dismantlin­g, deregistra­tion and recycling. The owner of vehicle gets a certificat­e of destructio­n with details of the vehicle and the date of recycling.

CERO pays the owner a price for the scrap. This price varies with the vehicle type, age and condition. An owner can also donate the vehicle to CERO, which has a tie-up with a Mahindra NGO dedicated to education of underprivi­leged girl child. The NGO will provide the owner 80G certificat­e for tax exemption. The facility uses world class equipment and processes to recycle vehicles so that there is zero damage to the environmen­t. The aim is to minimise pollution in the country by taking such old polluting vehicles off the road. CERO promises a safe and efficient recycling.

Issar said the company has imported equipment from the US and Europe for this plant.

CERO is doing digital marketing of the facility for now and is promoting the concept at vehicle dealership­s, garages and among the insurance companies.

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