Green tax is part of the series of initiatives to get the more than decade old, approximately, 28 million vehicles off the road, which the Central Government floated a draft Voluntary Vehicle Fleet Modernization Programme in year 2016.

According to the concept note, one old vehicle (BS-I) is equivalent 20 new vehicles (BS-IV) and with respect to particulate matter (PM) limit and one old vehicle is equivalent to five to eight new vehicles with respect to HC+NO_x and CO, this is a profoundly serious concern and must be addressed on war footing basis in our Large cities.

The interest of the government is to dissuade people from using vehicles which damage the environment and motivate people to switch to newer, less polluting vehicles. It is estimated that the commercial vehicles constitute around 5 per cent of the total vehicle fleet, contribute about 65 to 70 per cent of the total vehicular pollution. The vehicles which are manufactured before the year 2000 constitute less than 1 per cent of the total vehicle fleet but contributes to 15 per cent of the total vehicular pollution.

Rather than exempting certain type of vehicles out of green tax, like alternate fuels like CNG, ethanol, LPG and vehicles used in farming such as tractor, harvester, tiller, etc. the policy should be driven for all internal combustion engine-based vehicles checking for the pollution levels. Also, the policy should be central driven, if not states could dilute, and smaller cities and towns would become dumping grounds for the in-efficient vehicles.

While green tax is good initiative, unlike the personal vehicles, a lot of the transport vehicles are bread winners and the policy has to carefully adapt broader measures to offer economic support on vehicle upgrades to make them less polluting and incentive to exchange/purchase a newer vehicle. In her Union Budget speech for the FY 2021-22, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stated that the government will introduce a voluntary vehicle scrapping policy to incentivise people to replace their old vehicles with the new ones, which is a welcome move.

In fact, the government should utilise the funds collected through green tax and other initiative to encourage startups building businesses with non-polluting technologies like EV, fuel cell, compressed air, etc. and fuel the growth of these technologies in the country indigenously through tech collaborations and establish CSIR style initiative in the country.

India a country of billion+ people, we need efficient systems to transport both people and goods, this fights the pollution and reduce the emissions. New age platform for goods transport like us are optimising the city logistics across the country for greater efficiency, by capacity discovery, efficient goods delivery through route optimisation, reducing dry runs and idle times leading to lower emissions. We also believe city logistics are best suited for EV adaption where the runs are small and extremely start-stop conditions. We are building an EV ecosystem serving as a bridge to the OEMs, transporters and enterprise delivery. If the government could create support in financing and cheaper resources (battery packs and electronic components), EV’s prices will come crashing down and market forces will lead the path to greener economy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Prasad Sreeram, Founder & CEO, COGOS Technologies