20-year-old public vehicles to be banned from tomorrow
The government is set to put a complete ban on all public vehicles that are 20 years old or more across the country from Thursday.
After successfully phasing out such outdated vehicles from Kathmandu Valley, the Department of Transport Management (DoTM) has said that it will disallow such aged public vehicles to ply the country roads from March 15.
DoTM had imposed a ban on 20-year-old vehicles in the Valley from March 1 and has claimed that almost 2,500 such old vehicles that were plying on the Valley’s roads have been phased out. As per DoTM’s estimation, almost 2,500 such old vehicles are being operated outside the Kathmandu Valley.
“We have already notified transport entrepreneurs about the ban being imposed on old vehicles from March 15. Any transporter operating such aged vehicles across the country after Thursday will be subject to action prescribed by the laws,” said Rupnarayan Bhattarai, director general at DoTM.
DoTM officials also said that the government will neither issue routes for such vehicles from now on nor renew their registration.
However, the government is yet to prohibit 20-year-old government and private vehicles. The number of such aged government-owned vehicles still in operation is expected to be much higher than the phased out public vehicles.
DoTM started phasing out such vehicles from the country with an aim to curb vehicular pollution and improve traffic conditions. Moreover, such old vehicles in the country are said to be technically unfit to be operated and are also prone to accidents.
A recent inspection carried out by the government had stated that vehicles are the chief pollutants. Moreover, the inspection report had shown than more than 50 per cent of vehicles operating in Kathmandu Valley were emitting harmful gases above the limit set by the government.
However, transport entrepreneurs have been seeking incentives from the government before phasing out old vehicles citing that prohibiting transporters to run their vehicles will put their investments at risk.
Automobile dealers, on the other hand, have been urging government to ban vehicles on the basis of their fitness rather than age.
