India's road transport ministry has cleared a new technical standard, AIS-228, for retrofitting emission-control devices onto ageing heavy trucks and buses, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Thursday, opening a third path — beyond scrapping or replacement — for vehicles that fail current pollution rules.
Speaking at the 66th Annual Convention of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers in New Delhi, Gadkari said the device, developed from an innovation at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, can cut particulate matter emissions from pre-BS6 heavy vehicles by up to 90% and nitrogen oxides by up to 60%. Emissions from a retrofitted BS4 vehicle would then match those of a BS6 vehicle, he said.
The announcement came as Gadkari answered questions on Parivartan, a federal scheme approved by the Union Cabinet in June to replace more than two lakh ageing trucks and buses registered in Delhi and neighbouring National Capital Region districts of Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The programme carries a total outlay of ₹9,585 crores ($1 billion), including ₹5,040 crores in central budgetary support, and offers a 10-year road tax waiver, a registration fee exemption, purchase discounts and fuel vouchers to owners who scrap BS4-and-older vehicles for BS6 or electric replacements.
More than 1,300 truck and bus owners had already registered under the scheme, Gadkari said, and the government had overshot its target of 50 scrapping centres in the region, with 53 now operational and five more in the pipeline.
The retrofit option could complicate that push, by giving operators a cheaper route to compliance than buying new vehicles outright. Gadkari acknowledged the tension directly. "I don't know whether it is good for you or not as an industry, because this solution may give them an alternative," he told automakers in the hall. "But this is a good innovation," he added.
He urged manufacturers to draw more on domestic engineering talent as emissions and safety standards tighten. "Indian start-ups are doing an excellent job," Gadkari said, pointing executives toward graduates of the IITs. "The technology is very cheap," he noted, calling it a source of "a futuristic vision" for the industry.
Trucks and buses make up roughly 3% of the vehicle fleet in Delhi-NCR but generate about 36% of the region's PM2.5 emissions, according to ministry figures — a gap the government is counting on both scrappage and retrofitting to narrow.