Giving a temporary respite to the worried private vehicle owners, Commerce and Transport Minister, Tukuni Sahu and Principal Secretary of the department Usha Padhee on Wednesday asked the people of the state not to worry about their old vehicles, at least for the time being.
According to the Minister and the Principal Secretary who addressed a joint press conference today, in the first phase, only the government vehicles will be scrapped. The private vehicles will be scraped only when a separate policy is formulated.
“In the first phase, 500 15-year-old vehicles will be scrapped. For this, the government has approved the proposals of two companies. Steps for private vehicles will be taken only after a policy is formulated by the central government in this regard. So people need not worry about it, at least for the time being,” said the Principal Secretary.
While replying to a question by BJP MLA Kusum Tete in the Assembly on February 23, Commerce and Transport Minister, Tukuni Sahu had said, “The State government has decided to ban the old vehicles having no fitness from March 15, 2023. Among those vehicles, 12,99,351 are motorcycles.”
The Odisha government will scrap a whopping 20,39,500 unfit vehicles, mostly more than 15 years old, to check environmental pollution as part of the vehicle scrapping policy.