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| Owners of old vehicles under stress as govt 'contemplates' to take them off roads | | | Jehangir Rashid
Early Times Report
srinagar, Dec 3: Confusion has crept among the ranks of people whose vehicles are 15 years old or more. These people are skeptical about their future saying that they might be asked to roll back their vehicles.
Some of the people talked to Early Times and voiced their apprehensions about the proposed move of the government. They said the government should take a lenient view and take all the things into consideration before taking a final decision in this regard.
"My vehicle is 15 years old and recently one of my friends told me to sell the vehicle. When I enquired about the reasons he told me that 15 year old vehicles are being rolled back from the roads. There is confusion in this regard and same needs to be removed by the people at helm," said Irfan Ahmad, a resident of Bemina.
Most of the people are referring to the recently announced scheme for bus owners in this regard and say that such parameters are being applied to the other private vehicles as well. The people who are having diesel vehicles are more worried since they believe that there are least chances of amnesty for them.
"We have seen at many places that axe has fallen on diesel vehicles when it comes to tiding over the crisis generated due to the automobile pollution. I fear that the 15 year old diesel vehicles may be taken off from the roads in the union territory of Jammu & Kashmir given the fact that automobile pollution has reached alarming level," said Mohammad Saqib, a resident of Rawalpora.
It would be in place to mention here that the Jammu & Kashmir government led by Lieutenant Governor Girish Chandra Murmu introduced transport subsidy scheme for replacement of old buses in the union territory of Jammu & Kashmir. The scheme has been named as 'Jammu & Kashmir Transport Subsidy Scheme'.
The concerned department has invited applications from the owners of the buses (except Mini Buses/Matadors) of J&K UT for purchase of new buses in private sector. It has been clearly mentioned in the transport subsidy scheme that a bus aged 15 years shall be eligible for availing the subsidy. It has also been made clear that the existing vehicle should have cleared all the government dues including token tax, passenger tax, fitness fee, permit fee, bank liability etc.
"It is the duty of the government to clear the confusion from the minds of people. If there is any proposal from the government to roll back 15 year old vehicles then it should be made public. If there is no such plan still then the government needs to come in and do their bit so that people are relieved," said Aijaz Ahmad, a resident of Soura.
Significantly at places where the automobile pollution reached alarming level the old vehicles especially diesel vehicles were taken off from the roads. The vehicle owners were given some time frame to do the needful in this regard with most of the people following the directions from the respective governments. |
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