Baku, Azerbaijan, June 20
By Fatih Karimov – Trend:
Iran has scrapped over 51,000 old and sub-standard taxies in one year period to June 19, Mohsen Salehinia, the country’s deputy industry, mine and trade minister, said.
Salehinia said that Iran plans to continue implementing the regulation on scrapping old taxies polluting air and replace them with gas-consuming ones, the Iranian Industry, Mine and Trade Ministry’s SHATA news website reported.
According to a law on scrapping old vehicles, ratified in October 2013, four cars must be scrapped for every new imported car.
At least 51,000 old taxis will be replaced with gas-consuming cars during the current fiscal year (to end March 20, 2018), Salehinia said.
The official further said that over 130,000 old taxis are at service across the country.
According to Hamid Reza Fouladgar, an Iranian MP, over 1.250 million old and sub-standard cars are on the streets in Iran, polluting air.
Automobile use in Iran has doubled in the past eight years, and over one million cars on the roads operate more than 20 years old.
Iranian officials say the old and sub-standard vehicles cause over 70 percent of air pollution in megacities.
Almost 1.9 million old cars were scrapped in Iran over the past 12 years.
In recent three years, 247,000 cars were scrapped per year on average, according to Fouladgar.
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