State awaits Centre’s nod for extension to scrap old vehicles

CHENNAI: The State government had decided to defer the implementation of the vehicle scrapping policy, which is coming into effect on April 1 across the country as it awaits a response from the Centre for seeking a time extension.

As per the Centre’s notification, all government, PSUs and transport corporations owned vehicles which are over 15 years should be scrapped from April 1. Heavy vehicle fitness testing would be done by automated testing centres, not through RTOs.

A senior transport department official said that they had written to the Union government seeking time extension for implementing the policy. “Only after receiving a response from the Union government, we’ll take a call on it,” the official added.

He added that without setting up the automatic testing stations, heavy vehicle fitness testing through the ATS could not be implemented. “There are over 1,600 buses owned by the transport corporations that should be scrapped from April 1. If it was done, it’d affect public transportation. So, we’ve sought extension to implement it,” the official added.

The Centre had set a deadline of April 1 for implementing the policy which requires heavy vehicles that fail the FC test to be scrapped through registered vehicle scrapping facilities (RVSF), which is yet to be set up in the State.