Will Centre’s 5-year age-limit extension for EV, CNG help commercial drivers, operators?

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) recently proposed a five-year extension in the vehicle age limit for battery-operated, compressed natural gas, and hydrogen-powered commercial vehicles.

The proposal was made in the draft amendment to the Central Motor Vehicle Rules (CMVR), 1989. The draft amendments were published by the MoRTH through a gazette notification dated August 10.

The provisions are specifically for the vehicles covered under Rule 88 of the CMVR 1989, which mentions goods carriages and age limits for commercial vehicles. The five-year extension in the context of commercial vehicles is exclusively for EVs, CNGs, and Hydrogen-powered ones, under the national permit system.

The rule also proposes the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research’s approval in manufacturing and research for developing new products for the automotive industry.

How does the proposal help drivers, operators?

If the provisions of the draft proposal are implemented, the existing vehicle age limits of 12 years and 15 years for vehicles covered under the national permit system will be increased to 17 years and 20 years, respectively.

It could be argued that the increased validity of national permits could help the drivers and operators gain favourable profit margins.

EVs, CNGs, and Hydrogen powered vehicles are generally expensive to buy, and the higher upfront cost spent by drivers and operators will require more recovery time. Therefore, the increased validity of national permits is expected to make EVs, CNGs, and Hydrogen powered commercial vehicles a more viable option.

The draft proposal seeks to make the national permit procedures flexible with increased accessibility online. Applications and authorisations could be done digitally with electronic payment receipt generation.

The VAHAN portal is also proposed to be utilised more in the process of dealership or vehicle registration to auto-fetch more details.

Applicants would only need to fill information which is not available on the VAHAN database.

Provisions for temporary registration have also been proposed. Temporary registration for a fully built vehicle would be valid for 45 days while it undergoes conversion into an adapted vehicle or if it is to be registered in a State other than the State in which the dealer is situated.

A chassis without a body is proposed to get a temporary registration valid for six months from the date of issue. The registering authority could extend the validity by an extra 30 days if the chassis remains in a workshop beyond six months for body fitting, or because of unforeseen circumstances beyond the control of the owner.

The extended validity of 30 days by the registering authority would be allotted after submitting the application and payment of the prescribed fee.

As far as renewing the national permit is concerned, instead of renewing it every year, the draft proposes for operators to have the option to renew for five years at a time.

The deposit could be made in the national permit account for the national permit to be granted to operate throughout the territory of India. This is expected to reduce the time taken by the operators in undergoing the process every year.

But there remains a concern: the existing permit authorisation fee is ₹16,500 per year, so will the proposed five-year permit authorisation cost ₹82,500? Or will there be concessions provided?

The Extraordinary Gazette dated August 10 noted: "...notice is hereby given that the said draft rules shall be taken into consideration after the expiry of a period of thirty days from the date on which the copies of this notification, as published in the Gazette of India, are made available to the public."

"The objections or suggestions which may be received from any person with respect to the said draft rules before the expiry of the period aforesaid will be considered by the Central Government," the notification further stated.

The objections and suggestions to the draft rules are to be addressed to: Additional Secretary (MVL), Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Transport Bhawan, Parliament Street, New Delhi, via email.