Auto firms interested but governments are sleeping

recycling group constituted by the Society of Indian Automobile Manu-facturers, says: “The CPCB rules are vague. Strong regulations are required to ensure that the informal units involved in scrapping of vehicles, which use crude methods harmful for the environment, are brought under the organized sector.”

He adds: “State governments should develop recycling parks or estates for old vehicles outside the cities where infrastructure such as equipment required for depollution of vehicles and buildings with impervious floors surrounded by moats are provided.

“Those involved in informal scrapping units can be allowed to set up centers here as per the standards developed by the Automotive Research Association of India along with providing training for staff.” Recycling of automobiles has been seeing interest from automobile manufacturers for a while now but it is the government that is sleeping on the job.

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, which has had a group working on developing a framework and research in recycling of vehicles for the past 10 years has a system in place in its Automotive Mission Plan, 2016-26. The system seeks to make it easier, and also financially beneficial, for vehicle owners to scrap their old vehicles. However, only one scrapping unit has been set up in the country so far — in Chennai. But that’s just a demo unit.

Recycling of ELVs is standard practice across Japan, Korea, China and in several EU nations. In India, there are no laws which even define what an ELV is and what vehicles needs to be scrapped. As of now, in Telangana at least, the only legislation is payment of a ‘green tax’ by owners of such vehicles with ages exceeding 15 years from date of registration. The green tax is `250 and `500 once in five years for motorcycles and private vehicles, respectively. For transport vehicles, it is `200 every year.

An important reason for ensuring old vehicles do not ply on India’s roads is highlighted by the fact that the latest Bharat Stage-IV vehicle emission standards has mandated 1 gram per kilometer of Carbon Monoxide emission for petrol vehicles, whereas old vehicles manufactured before the year 2000 CO emission ranges between 6.2(in 1998) to even 27.1(in 1991). The Telangana government is all set to raise the medical faculty retirement age to 62 or 65 to overcome a severe shortage of faculty across the state’s medical colleges.

The retirement age is currently, 58 years.

The Medical Council of India has sought opinions from all states about the proposal to increase the retirement age to 70 years to overcome the staff shortage. But the state government is in favour of increasing the age to 62 or 65.

The state minister for health C. Laxma Reddy said the government would hold elaborate discussions with existing staff before sending a letter to the MCI on the proposed increase in staff age limits.

“There are some concerns over existing junior staff losing their promotions

Only one scrapping and recycling unit has been set up in the country so far — in Chennai. But that’s just a demo unit