Shri Nitin Gadkari says the National automobile Scrappage policy is a win-win policy for all the stakeholders

Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways  Shri Nitin Gadkari has said that the National automobile Scrappage policy is a mutual win-win policy for all the stakeholders. Inaugurating the Vehicle Scrapping and Recycling Facility set up by Maruti Suzuki Toyotsu India Private Limited (MSTI)at Noida today Shri Nitin Gadkari said the policy aims at creating an ecosystem for phasing out unfit and polluting vehicles from the Indian roads and to meet this objective state-of-the-art scrapping and recycling units are needed.

 The Minister said the policy will help in increasing Automobile sales, provide employment, reduce import costs, generate incremental GST revenue and help to solve the global shortage of semiconductor chips. Shri Nitin Gadkari said policy provides an important link in creating a circular economy (waste to wealth)  for the country. He said three to four scrapping centres should be set up in every district.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has recently launched the visionary Voluntary Vehicle-Fleet ModernisationProgram (Vehicle Scrapping Policy). This Policy is aimed at creating an ecosystem for phasing out old unsafe, polluting vehicles and replacing them with newer safe and fuel-efficient vehicles. Ministry Shri Nitin Gadkari has also notified the Registered Vehicle Scrapping Facility (RVSF) Rules to enable the setting up of modern vehicle scrapping facilities in India which can recycle the vehicles in an environment-friendly manner.

The existing vehicle dismantling and recycling industry in India is unorganized and recycling of older vehicles is not done in an environment-friendly manner. This not only leads to inefficient resource management but also non-realisation of the full value of high-strength steel alloys and recovery of valuable rare-earth metals. The existing ELV scrapping cycle has a low recovery percentage and many materials get wasted or are not properly recycled. As per unofficial industry estimates, the recovery percentage in India is about 70-75%, while global benchmarks for recovery from the scrapped vehicles are in the range of 85-95%.

Since the prevailing processes in the unorganized sector for recycling/ scrapping are not carried out in an environment-friendly manner, it is the endeavour of this Ministry to promote the setting up of RVSF, to enable the use of environmentally-friendly processes in this regard. The Vehicle Scrapping Policy thereby creates such formal business opportunity & promote scientific recycling within the scrapping industry.

The RVSF inaugurated by  Minister has been set up in an area of 11,000 sqm with a capacity of handling 24,000 vehicles per year. The plant has been set up by Maruti Suzuki India Ltd in collaboration with Toyota Tshusho Group. Shri Gadkari congratulated Maruti Suzuki and Toyota Tshoshu Group and also requested other stakeholders to come forward to create similar state-of-the-art scrapping and recycling facilities to help achieve the objectives of the Policy.

H.E.Mr Satoshi Suzuki, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Embassy of Japan, India was also present at the inauguration function.

Disclaimer : this is an official press release by pib.