India Looking For Eco-Friendly German Technology To Scrap Old Vehicles

The issue was discussed in a meeting of Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari with his German counterpart and Infrastructure Minister Alexander Dobrindt and and the delegation accompanying him. "Discussions were held on cooperation for developing vehicle scrapping capacity in India. It has invited Germany to share environment friendly technology for scrapping of old vehicles and also for processing of the waste thus generated," Road Transport and Highways Ministry said in a statement.

The proposed Voluntary Vehicle Fleet Modernisation Programme (V-VMP) aims to scrap heavy vehicles that are more than 15 years old in the first phase. The statement said in what may be a major step towards reducing pollution, Gadkari informed the German minister that India has put in place all required regulations for the use of flex-fuel like ethanol mixed with petrol. "He (Gadkari) said that German automobile manufacturers can be called upon to produce cars that can run on flex-fuel for India, like the ones being produced in Canada and USA," the statement said.

The minister also expressed confidence and hope that the cooperation between the two countries will grow even further in the times to come. Secretary Shipping Rajive Kumar, Secretary Road Transport & Highways Sanjay Mitra and other senior officers were also present during the meeting. Earlier, Gadkari had said that the draft vehicle scrapping policy would offer a combined benefit of Rs 14,000 crore to the Centre and states and drive the auto industry growth by 22 per cent. "The Central government will benefit by Rs 4,000 crore and state governments will benefit by Rs 10,000 crore, while your industry (automobile industry) will grow by 22 per cent," he had said.

The draft V-VMP policy had earlier proposed to bring vehicles bought on or before March 31, 2005, numbering about 28 million, under its purview. Once the policy is finalised, it is estimated to result in domestic steel scrap generation worth Rs 5,500 crore to substitute imported scrap, he had said, adding that it would create huge employment. According to the ministry, the proposed policy has the potential to reduce vehicular emission by 25-30 per cent and save oil consumption by 3.2 billion litres a year.