Scrapping vehicle too costly for truck owners: DMK MP in RS

New Delhi: DMK leader KRN Rajeshkumar on Wednesday urged the government to allow commercial truck owners to replace old engines instead of scrapping entire an vehicle under the vehicle scrappage policy.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour in the Rajya Sabha, Rajeshkumar acknowledged that the government’s goal of reducing pollution and improving road safety through the scrappage policy was “certainly an excellent work”.

However, he said the mandatory scrapping of commercial vehicles, especially trucks older than 20 years, coupled with high fitness certificate fees, was “severely affecting the livelihood of countless truck owners”.

“Many of these trucks, the very backbone of Indian goods transport, have structurally sound bodies. The main reason for pollution is usually the old engine,” the DMK member said.

He argued that replacing old polluting engines with new BS6-compliant engines was a “practical and cost-effective” solution that would technologically renew vehicles.

“Why force scrapping of the entire serviceable truck body when only its engine needs to be changed?” Rajeshkumar questioned. He said the policy placed a “massive economic burden” on small truck owners who could not afford to spend lakhs of rupees

on new vehicles.