Is it fair to be told your car just turned scrap: Maruti chief RC Bhargava

NEW DELHI: Wondering whether the ban on over 10-year-old diesel vehicles will improve air quality in the national capital, top carmaker Maruti Suzuki’s Chairman R C Bhargava has said the industry would certainly be hit hard by it.

He also questioned whether it is fair to around 2 lakh car owners, affected by the ban, to be told without hearing them that their “asset has just become scrap”.

Bhargava asserted that cars contributed only 2.2 per cent of the overall air pollution in DELHI as per the scientifically collected data analysed by the IIT Kanpur.

“This ban on diesel cars, at least I can’t see how it will make any measurable difference in air quality in Delhi but it will certainly hurt industry more than that,” Bhargava told PTI here.

He said that around 2 lakh car owners, who would be impacted by the order in the Capital, had done nothing wrong and complied with the law while buying these vehicles.

“Suddenly they find without being heard that there asset has just become scrap. I don’t know how far that is fair, how far that is justified as far as those people are concerned. It is (vehicles) their means of livelihood, it is their means of going to their business,” Bhargava said.

PTI