{"id":275810,"date":"2025-12-30T00:02:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T18:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/?p=275810"},"modified":"2025-12-30T00:04:55","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T18:34:55","slug":"toxic-air-turns-a-windfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/2025\/12\/30\/toxic-air-turns-a-windfall\/","title":{"rendered":"Toxic air turns a windfall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Car Sales’ Boom<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Shivaji Sarkar<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scrappage is a profit accelerator. By some industry estimates, it can add 30 per cent or more to automaker profits, not through innovation but by forcing replacement, acquiring old cars cheaply, recycling-retrofitting their parts, and locking consumers into high-margin service and spare-part ecosystems. Pollution is the cover story; profit is the motive.<\/p>\n

Delhi\u2019s air is \u201cfilthy\u201d\u2014but not for the reasons the government and the automobile lobby keep selling. The Tughlaqi GRAP curbs on entry of cars thawing Delhi into chaos is dishonest. And that dishonesty conveniently channels policy, subsidies and public anger toward cars, consumers and scrappage\u2014while the dirtiest culprits continue to billow away, largely untouched. It is being turned into an all-India scourge.<\/p>\n

While exact figures for \u201cprospected old car parts\u201d are scarce, the Rs 94,000 crore auto-industry significantly boost profits via\u00a0high-margin new spare parts (often\u00a015-90%+ margins\u00a0vs. 4-10% on new cars), as cars with 40 plus-year life are junked in ten years. Post-scrap India\u2019s aftermarket booms, creating huge revenue in recycling\/refurbishing.<\/p>\n

The Emissions Myth<\/p>\n

The standard defence of vehicle scrappage is emissions compliance\u2014Euro-VI versus older norms. In real-world urban, the difference in tailpipe emissions of Euro-I and Euro-VI vehicles rarely exceed one per cent. Delhi\u2019s air is shaped far more by construction dust, industry, coal-fired plants, crop burning and winter inversion. Cars are minor players. They are targeted as they are the easiest to regulate\u2014and the easiest to monetise. Even ultra-low sulphur Indian BS-VI diesel used since 2020 is the cleanest available globally, but being junked despite a higher fuel efficiency<\/p>\n

What the Science Actually Says<\/p>\n

A Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) study shows nearly one-third of Delhi\u2019s annual PM2.5 is ammonium sulphate\u2014formed when sulphide oxide (SO\u201a ) from coal plants reacts with ammonia\u2014rising to almost 50 per cent in winter smog. During peak pollution, PM2.5 jumps to 49 per cent, versus 21 per cent in summer and monsoon, pointing to regional coal emissions, not vehicle exhaust. Much of India\u2019s PM2.5 is chemically formed in the air from coal-linked precursor gases\u2014yet coal remains politically untouchable, while cars are easy and profitable targets. The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) fixated on PM10 and local sources, neatly sidesteps region-wide SO\u201a\u00a0 coal emissions,<\/p>\n

Windfall: A Forced Market for New Cars<\/p>\n

For automobile manufacturers, 10-year-new car scrappage is a windfall. The policy creates a captive, state-manufactured market for new cars. Owners are nudged\u2014or forced\u2014into replacement through bans, enforcement drives and a cocktail of \u201cincentives\u201d: scrappage certificates, road-tax rebates, and dealer discounts of around five per cent.<\/p>\n

What is presented as choice is, in reality, coercion with paperwork. This comes at a time when many households are already servicing seven- or eight-year EMIs on vehicles that are suddenly declared unfit. The state is accelerating depreciation to zero by decree and compelling repurchase at full market price.<\/p>\n

Cars Acquired for a Song<\/p>\n

Vehicles are acquired for a fraction of their real economic value. A well-maintained car worth several lakh rupees in utility terms is reduced to scrap pricing, around Rs 20,000. Owners lose the asset; the ecosystem gains cheap raw material.<\/p>\n

Scrapped vehicles yield 65\u201370 per cent steel, 7\u20138 per cent aluminium, copper, rubber and plastics. This material flows from registered scrapping facilities straight back into manufacturing supply chains. For automakers, this means lower raw material costs, reduced reliance on virgin inputs, and a steady pipeline of recycled metals\u2014while simultaneously boosting new vehicle sales.<\/p>\n

EVs, Subsidies, and Blind Faith<\/p>\n

Alongside scrappage runs the government\u2019s missionary push for battery electric vehicles, rolled out without serious evaluation of what happens after the showroom sale. Battery dumping grounds, recycling hazards, and age-bound end-of-life risks are treated as footnotes. Lithium-ion waste is someone else\u2019s problem\u2014preferably tomorrow\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Lithium mining itself\u2014from South America to Australia\u2014is ecologically destructive, water-intensive and socially corrosive. Public discomfort\u2014range anxiety, safety concerns, even reports of giddiness and health effects\u2014is dismissed as anecdotal noise.<\/p>\n

NO\u201a : The Convenient Villain<\/p>\n

Parallel to this runs the more coercive instrument: junking. Automobile and allied lobbies have suddenly discovered an unsubstantiated villain called NO\u201a\u00a0 levels, now invoked to justify forcing functional vehicles off the road nationwide. The scientific basis is thin. The commercial payoff is enormous.<\/p>\n

Scrappage is not about clean air. It is about profit engineering. India\u2019s auto aftermarket is already booming at \u00b9 94,000 crore in FY24, and forced scrappage accelerates it. New cars generate service contracts, warranties, insurance tie-ins and years of high-margin parts sales, while older vehicles\u2014served by independent mechanics and non-OEM parts\u2014sustain a consumer-friendly parallel economy that scrappage efficiently erases.<\/p>\n

First, spare-parts margins: old cars repaired outside original equipment manufacturer (OEM) networks hurt profits, while new cars lock buyers into proprietary parts and service cycles, where margins jump from 7\u201310 per cent on vehicles to 15\u201390 per cent on spares. Second, recycled metal savings: scrappage delivers cheap steel and aluminium and even windshield and electronic chip under the banner of circular economy.<\/p>\n

Third, EMI-driven forced demand: citizens are pushed into loans for forced purchases. Together, these incentives explain why pollution science is selectively framed to blame local dust rather than structural sources. EVs are subsidised despite unresolved environmental costs. Junking is rolled out nationwide under the banner of clean air for higher profits.<\/p>\n

A Circular Economy\u2014for Whom?<\/p>\n

Proponents sell this as a \u201ccircular economy\u201d: old cars reborn as new. Environmentally neat, economically rigged. Consumers lose assets at distressed prices; manufacturers gain cheap inputs and guaranteed demand, while intermediaries flourish and the state collects fresh taxes. Sustainability language disguises a one-sided transfer.<\/p>\n

Enforcement worsens it. Barricades, spot seizures and discretionary checks turn commuting into coercion. Where discretion thrives, rent-seeking follows\u2014harassment, selective targeting and quiet \u201csettlements\u201d included.<\/p>\n

The Real Elephant – Smog<\/p>\n

The crisis is real. The framing is engineered. Citizens are asked to junk vehicles, take fresh EMIs, and feel virtuous about EV badges. India does not need more virtue signalling on wheels. It needs honest science, and reversal of age-bound forced car junking, a major drain on economy. \u2014 INFA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Car Sales’ Boom By Shivaji Sarkar Scrappage is a profit accelerator. By some industry estimates, it can add 30 per cent or more to automaker profits, not through innovation but by forcing replacement, acquiring old cars cheaply, recycling-retrofitting their parts, and locking consumers into high-margin service and spare-part ecosystems. Pollution is the cover story; profit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-275810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-features"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}