PARIVARTAN logs 1,300 to 1,450 old trucks and buses as Delhi-NCR scrap scheme looks for 25,000 by October

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways expects 25,000 registrations by October under PARIVARTAN, the scheme that pays Delhi-NCR operators to scrap BS-IV and older trucks and buses and buy BS-VI or electric replacements. Secretary V. Umashankar said on Friday that 1,450 owners had signed up since the portal opened on 14 July. A separate Saturday count used by state outlets put the figure above 1,300. Either way the book is still a fraction of the fleet the Cabinet named in June: more than 1.9 lakh trucks and 16,329 buses across 37 districts.

Umashankar also said the government wants the two-year implementation window approved on 3 June compressed into one year. That is an administrative target, not a new Cabinet paper. It means the ministry intends to finish beneficiary registration, scrap verification and the first wave of replacement purchases before the next winter smog season is fully spent.

The scheme’s full name is Programme for Accelerated Renewal and Incentivisation of Vehicle Assets for Reducing Transport Air Pollution and Network Emissions. The outlay is Rs 9,585 crore, of which Rs 5,041 crore is central support. Money moves through the National Capital Region Planning Board under the housing ministry. MoRTH runs the operations. The map covers all of Delhi, 14 districts in Haryana, eight in Uttar Pradesh and two in Rajasthan.

The incentive stack is designed to close the gap between a running old truck and a new loan. Buyers get a five percentage-point interest subvention for five years, a ten-year road-tax waiver, a registration-fee waiver, and at least an 8 percent ex-showroom discount from the 15 manufacturers that have signed memoranda. Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh have already notified the tax and fee waivers. Diesel and CNG BS-VI replacements add monthly fuel vouchers from Rs 1,200 to Rs 4,800 for five years, by category. Electric replacements get a one-time payment from Rs 64,000 to Rs 2.56 lakh. Forty-two banks and NBFCs are on the portal for the subsidised loans.

The emissions arithmetic is why a truck scheme is an air-quality scheme. Heavy commercial vehicles are about 3 percent of the NCR fleet and about 36 percent of its PM2.5 from transport, Umashankar said. Replacing the oldest 2 lakh of them does not clean the tailpipes of cars and two-wheelers. It removes the single dirtiest slice that idles on the Ring Road and the peri-urban freight corridors.

Twenty-five thousand registrations by October would be a serious start and still only about one eighth of the eligible stock. Operators will move when the scrap value plus the voucher plus the cheaper loan beats the residual life of a 12-year-old BS-III. Many of those vehicles still work. The scheme is asking owners to kill a productive asset in exchange for a paper package. That is why the manufacturer discount and the fuel voucher exist. Without them the interest cut alone does not clear the monthly maths.

Winter in Delhi is the clock. If the one-year compression holds, the city should see a visible drop in old freight hulks before November 2027. If registrations stall near the current 1,400, PARIVARTAN will be a well-funded portal with a short queue. The next three months of October targeting will show which of those two stories is true.