Interestingly, one-fourth of the unfit vehicles (507) are under the health department, followed by the police (116), revenue (102), state GST (81), and the women and child development (68) departments.
As per the Central norms, all those vehicles under the govt that have completed 15 years are unfit for use and the registration of those vehicles will be cancelled.
In Jan last year, the Centre had offered the cash-strapped state govt INR 150cr if it scraps all the govt vehicles that are more than 15 years old.
The scrapping of old govt vehicles is part of the larger scheme of the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) to reduce old, unfit, and polluting vehicles in the country. The Centre had last year earmarked INR 2,000cr as incentives to the states for scrapping the old govt vehicles under the scheme. The states were categorised under four categories with respect to the vehicle population and density, in which Kerala falls in category two, which were offered INR 150cr each.
The state was asked to come up with an order specifying the number of govt vehicles that it would scrap as part of the scheme and then scrap them at the registered vehicle scrapping facility (RVSF) and share the proof of scrapping the vehicles with the MoRTH. After examining the state’s achievement, MoRTH would then recommend the ministry of finance to release the incentive for the state, it had communicated. But state is yet to set up an RVSF here.
Instead of setting up an RVSF, the state has written to the Centre seeking relaxation in the vehicle use norms. Since the Centre did not take any decision on the state’s request, state has neither scrapped the 15-plus-year-old vehicles nor has been able to use them. There are as many as 19,201 vehicles under various departments and organizations under the state govt and 9,976 drivers who are plying them.
State has been witnessing an exponential rise in the number of vehicles on the road. As per govt’s statistics, there are 1.48cr vehicles in the state in 2021, as against 53.97 lakh vehicles in 2011, which has further increased at this rate by 2024.
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