All over the world, local and national government offices alike are working hard on schemes and projects geared towards reducing air pollution. Nevertheless, there are certain nations and regions where the problem is significantly more troubling and dangerous to public health in general than others.
The United Kingdom may be far from perfect when it comes to vehicle emissions and air pollution – the problem in India however is on an entirely higher level.
Which is precisely why a new proposal called Voluntary Vehicle Fleet Modernisation (V-VMP) was recently submitted by the road transport ministry in India. Had the proposal gone ahead, it would have resulted in a new system wherein absolutely any vehicles that were registered before March 30, 2005 and did not meet with certain specific standards would by law have been taken off the roads. 
This would have meant no less than 28 million vehicles being retired, in order to prevent them continuing to exacerbate already out of control air pollution levels in certain parts of India.
Of course, it wouldn’t have been as simple as just taking the cars in question off their previous owners and that being the end of the deal. Instead, a governmental revenue department would offer those surrendering their vehicles an excise discount of up to 50% when buying a new car. On the whole, this could have made new cars cheaper to buy by approximately 8% to 12%.
It seemed like the scheme was about to be set in stone, though has now been put permanently on ice. The reason being that the revenue department that would have offered the rebates has turned down the proposal, with the finance ministry having deemed the scheme to be misguided and unbalanced.
First of all, critics pointed out the fact that the deal would be considerably more valuable for those looking to buy expensive cars, as opposed to the average buyer looking to pick up a more affordable vehicle. The finance ministry stated that it would be much more appropriate to provide those surrendering their cars with a cash payment instead, with predetermined limits being set on exactly how much can be handed over for any given car.
There were also plenty of critics who argued that the entire scheme was in fact nothing to do with reducing pollution and fuel consumption in general. Instead, they believe it was nothing more than a collaboration between the government and the car manufacturing industry to bolster sales and put an end to the current slump.
Whatever the truth of the matter happens to be, it’s all irrelevant now as the scheme doesn’t look to be going ahead in any way, shape or form.
Nevertheless, it’s yet another illustration of exactly how serious countries all over the world are taking both air pollution and the subject of responsible car recycling. Here at Take My Scrap Car, we can’t promise to transform the UK’s air pollution and recycling standards single-handedly, but we certainly like to think we’re making our own small contribution to the cause!
