The proposal to tax the old, unfit, and polluting commercial and personal vehicles in order to tackle pollution.
Phasing out the unfit
The Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari has approved a proposal to levy a ‘Green Tax’ on old vehicles which are polluting the environment. It is proposed that Green Tax may be levied on commercial vehicles that are older than 8 years and personal vehicles older than 15 years, to clean up the environment by phasing out unfit and polluting vehicles.
The revenue collected from such tax will be kept in a separate account and used for tackling pollution, and for States to set up state of art facilities for emission monitoring. However, the proposal will now go to the states for consultation before it is formally notified. Though, certain states are already levying Green Tax on such vehicles.
All about the proposed rates
As per the proposal by the ministry, Green Tax will be imposed on:
Commercial vehicles older than eight years would be charged at the time of renewal of fitness certificate at the rate of 10 to 25% of the road tax.
Personal vehicles would be charged green tax at the time of renewal of registration certification after 15 years.
The tax could be as high as 50% of the road tax in the highly polluted cities.
Public transport vehicles will be charged lower tax.
The policy will only apply for petrol and diesel vehicles. Other vehicles like strong hybrids, electric vehicles, and those running on alternate fuels like CNG, ethanol, LPG will be exempted.
The need to push
The ministry stated that older vehicles are more polluting and their fuel and maintenance cost is much higher than that of new vehicles, hence the need was felt to impose this tax on older vehicles.
The aim is to dissuade people from using vehicles that damage the environment, motivate them to switch to newer, less polluting vehicles and to reduce overall pollution level and make the polluter pay for it.
The proposal does not state the rate for personal vehicles; however, it should not impact many as there would not be many personal vehicle owners owning cars beyond 15 years of age as there have been bans imposed on the use of 15-year-old petrol vehicles and 10-year-old diesel vehicles in highly polluted places like Delhi.
This proposed imposition will act as an effective step for controlling and reducing automobile pollution. This move will impact the commercial vehicle owners more as per the estimates by the ministry, commercial vehicles contribute about 65–70% of total vehicular pollution and such older vehicles pollute 10–25 times more than modern vehicles.
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