Union Minister Nitin Gadkari gives green signal to scrappage policy, likely to be announced this week

Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday gave a green signal to the scrappage policy which is likely to be announced this week. As per reports, the Centre will first announce the rules for the scrapping centre, followed by the fitness rules for vehicles in the second phase.

File Photo

New Delhi: The Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday (March 1, 2021) has given a green signal to the scrappage policy which is likely to be announced this week.

As per reports, the Centre will first announce the rules for the scrapping centre, followed by the fitness rules for vehicles in the second phase.

This is to be noted that the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the policy in her Budget speech on February 1 to boost the sales of new vehicles.

Back then, Nitin Gadkari had welcomed the policy and said it will lead to a new investment of around Rs 10,000 crore and create as many as 50,000 jobs.

He had informed that the policy would cover over 1 crore light, medium and heavy motor vehicles.

Earlier in the day, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) released the ratings for 18,668 km of completed 4/6 lane NH stretches covering 343 toll plazas. This has been done by NHAI under MoRTH, which has taken initiative to improve its accountability towards road users, who pay user fee for use of developed National Highways. 

"This initiative has been taken as per the vision of improving the quality of public services. The fundamental objective of highway rating is “Minimum time with maximum safety in stress-free environment” from highway users’ perspective," said the MoRTH.

The Ministry has also begun real-time monitoring of toll plazas across the country to improve traffic congestion problem at toll plazas, city roads and highways by using a central monitoring system along with a bundle of analytics and quick decision-making outputs. 

This is likely to facilitate saving the commute time, improve customer experience, save fuel wastage cost and reduce carbon footprint. 

Nitin Gadkari said, with these technologies on the ground, it will be possible to identify the lacunae in road construction and management. 

The Minister also informed that 11,035 km of NH have been constructed during this year, which represents a rate of 35 kms per day. 

The Minister reiterated his resolve to achieve the rate of 40 km per day within the balance months of this financial year.