New Delhi : Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari has mooted a scheme that would offer good value for ten-year old cars that have to be scrapped mandatorily as per the directions of the National Green tribunal. “We propose to give the customers credits up to Rs.1.5 lakhs when they surrender these cars to be junked. These credits can be encashed when buying a new car,” he said at a media briefing.
This proposal is a part of an overarching project to spur the Sagarmala Project, aimed at port-led development in coastal areas. Getting cheaper raw material from such scrapped cars, and boosting the entire ‘car breaking industry’ to get such junked cars from all over the world, is part of the government’s scheme to boost the country’s economy. This will lead to an investment of about Rs 70,000 crore for its 12 major ports.
In an interaction after the first meeting of the National Sagarmala Apex Committee the minister said: “Ports play a pivotal role in boosting the country’s economic growth. Logistic cost has to be reduced. Our logistic cost is thrice that of China’s. We are not able to compete with global markets. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called the meeting of industry leaders, a leading industrialist said Mumbai to London travel is cheaper than Mumbai to Delhi. Sagarmala will address all these issue by port-led development programmes.”
Chief Ministers of states like Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Odisha, who attended the NSAC meet, came out with
