Government Issues Draft Guidelines For Setting Up Vehicle Scrapping Facility

The transport ministry has issued draft guidelines for setting up authorised vehicle scrapping facilities as it looks to legalise the industry in India.

The draft guidelines, posted on the website of the Union Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, have been notified to promote a legal vehicle dismantling and scrapping industry. The ministry will accept comments until Nov. 15.

Entities setting up these facilities should meet the minimum technical requirement for collection and dismantling centres as per the guidelines issued by the Central Pollution Control Board. They will also have to obtain a no-objection certificate from the state pollution control board and submit it to the transport ministry six months before commencing operations.

The guidelines will apply to all vehicles that do not have a valid registration, where owners are willing to scrap their vehicles, or where enforcement authorities have to scrap vehicles impounded or seized by them. In case of manufacturing rejects and test vehicles, or when a vehicle is not granted a fitness certificate can also be scrapped, the ministry said.

Vehicle scrapping facilities should be set up in a large area with adequate space for vehicular movement and must have certified de-polluting equipment to ensure zero leakage of pollutants, radioactive detection equipment and environment-complaint parking of waste vehicles, among others.

The guidelines also mandate scrappers to install CCTV cameras at the yard and keep record of the scrapping in the authorised scrappers’ system for at least three months. The facilities will also get connectivity and access to the ‘Vahan’ vehicle registration database with password-protected user IDs and will be authorised to make a record of transactions related to scrapping of vehicles. The registered owners of scrapped vehicles will be given a digital certificate of vehicle scrapping, it said.