Vehicles more than 20 year old will be banned from operating throughout Nepal from next year in an attempt to improve the country's air quality, officials said on Saturday. The ban is effective to all the buses, minibuses, private Sedan Cars, vans, four-wheel-drive vehicles, taxis and three-wheeler auto rickshaws manufactured on or before 1980, state-run radio said. The ministry of population and environment's ban, beginning November 15, 2001, is particularly aimed at the notoriously poor air quality in the Kathmandu area, home to more than 60 per cent of all registered vehicles.
The government had over a year ago banned diesel-operated three-wheeler Indian-manufactured auto rickshaws in the Kathmandu valley. Environmental studies carried out in recent times have shown that the quality of air in the bowl-shaped Kathmandu valley, containing the cities of Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur, is worse than World Health Organization permissible limits.

Officials say that between 20 to 30 per cent of all vehicles currently running will be affected by the ban.
Bureau Report