Ghaziabad: The transport department has decided to continue its drive to confiscate end-of-life vehicles (ELV) across Ghaziabad, GB Nagar, Hapur and Bulandshahr and reach out to RWAs and housing societies to collect such vehicles parked on their premises for scrapping ahead of winter pollution.The seizure and scrapping stem from a National Green Tribunal order passed over a decade ago. It prohibited diesel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol vehicles older than 15 years from plying on Delhi-NCR roads to curb severe air pollution. But in a public notice issued on Aug 5 this year, the tribunal clarified that it has not issued any order to seize or impound such vehicles.Ghaziabad’s regional transport officer (RTO) Dr Siya Ram Verma said they are targeting end-of-life vehicles plying on the roads. They are also consulting with residents’ welfare associations, municipal corporations and Noida Authority in their respective jurisdictions to pick up the ones that are parked inside high-rise societies. “We want to take pre-emptive steps to reduce air pollution ahead of winter because the air quality index in NCR deteriorates because of the emissions from such vehicles,” he said.He said 375 vehicles have been seized this month, while action has been taken against 1,000 old vehicles so far. “The target is to scrap approximately 5,000 vehicles in Sept for which 15 teams have been deployed in the jurisdiction of Ghaziabad RTO,” he said. It has identified roughly 2.7 lakh ELVs in its jurisdiction, of which a few continue to ply on roads.He said there is a lack of clarity in terms of incentives for scrapping private vehicles. Earlier, car owners used to get certain exemptions in road taxes and a discount on the price of a new vehicle when they produced vehicle scrapping certificates. “Under the ‘parivartan’ scheme, the benefits are still available for commercial vehicles,” he said. “We are trying to rework the scheme so that more car owners are interested in parting with vehicles that have completed their retention period.”To streamline the scrapping process of ELVs, he chaired a meeting with the owners of registered vehicle scrapping facilities on Wednesday and discussed the standard operating procedures as advised by the transport commissioner’s office.During the meeting, instructions were given regarding detention, custody, transportation and disposal or scrapping through the RVSF. The RVSF operators have been directed to ensure that every vehicle received by them is identified, documented and scrapped in accordance with the prescribed procedures, ensuring no irregularities at any level. They were asked to issue scrapping certificates and make necessary portal entries in a timely manner after the scrapping process is completed.On Sept 2, an ARTO enforcement team seized 12 vehicles during a drive in Sahibabad and handed them over to authorised scrapping centres. It had drawn sharp criticism from the vehicle owners when the teams raided the highrise societies and lifted the vehicles, allegedly without issuing any prior notice.With inputs from Neetika Jha
