Virtue signalling on wheels

The scrappage policy is a profit accelerator.

- Shivaji Sarkar

By some industry estimates, it can add 30% 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.Delhi’s air is “filthy”—but not for the reasons the government and the automobile lobby keep selling. The Tughlaqi GRAP curb 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—while the dirtiest culprits continue to billow away, largely untouched. This is being turned into an all-India scourge.