Ashok Leyland MD Shenu Agarwal questions retrofit emission devices for older trucks and calls for stronger scrappage incentives to improve emissions, safety, fuel efficiency and fleet productivity.
Key points
- What Prompted This Scepticism
- The Scale Of India's Ageing Truck Problem
- Where Ashok Leyland Stands On Scrappage Itself
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Ashok Leyland's Managing Director and CEO, Shenu Agarwal, has voiced doubts over whether retrofit emission devices are a genuine solution for India's fleet of ageing, high-emission trucks, favouring a stronger push toward scrapping old vehicles altogether instead. His comments come shortly after Union Minister Nitin Gadkari announced approval of a new retrofit device aimed at cutting emissions from pre-BS6 heavy vehicles still running on Indian roads.
What Prompted This Scepticism
Table of Contents
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1. What Prompted This Scepticism |
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2. Why Ashok Leyland Keeps Pushing For Scrappage Instead |
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3. The Scale Of India's Ageing Truck Problem |
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4. Where Ashok Leyland Stands On Scrappage Itself |
The retrofit device in question, approved under new AIS 228 standards, was developed by an IIT Delhi-led team and is designed to cut particulate matter emissions by up to 90 percent and NOx emissions by 60 percent on older, pre-BS6 heavy vehicles, at a notably low cost of around Rs 4,000. On the surface, that sounds like an easy win, a cheap way to make old trucks meaningfully cleaner without asking owners to buy new vehicles.
Ashok Leyland's leadership has taken a more cautious view of this kind of solution. The company's long-standing position is that emissions are only one part of a much bigger problem with India's ageing commercial vehicle fleet and that a retrofit device, however effective at cutting tailpipe emissions, doesn't address the safety, reliability and productivity gaps that come with running significantly older trucks on the road for years beyond their intended service life.
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This isn't a new position for the company. Agarwal has consistently argued, including in comments made ahead of Union Budget 2026, that India's current scrappage policy simply isn't generating enough incentive to genuinely move the needle on fleet renewal. Speaking on the subject earlier this year, he noted that the existing policy was expected to be sufficient but clearly hasn't been and that whatever additional incentive gets introduced needs to be substantial enough to actually change buyer behaviour, not just a token gesture.
The company's argument essentially comes down to a question of priorities. A retrofit can lower emissions from an old truck, but it doesn't improve outdated safety systems, doesn't bring the kind of fuel efficiency gains newer engines offer and doesn't address the general wear and mechanical risk that comes with keeping a vehicle running well past its designed lifespan. From Ashok Leyland's perspective, encouraging genuine fleet replacement solves all of these problems together, while a retrofit only really solves one.
The Scale Of India's Ageing Truck Problem
Ashok Leyland's management has pointed to a genuinely striking number to make this case: the average age of India's truck fleet has crossed 10 years, well beyond the historical replacement cycle of 7 to 8 years that used to be the norm. That gap matters, since it means a meaningful share of trucks on Indian roads today are running years past when they'd typically have been swapped out for something newer in a healthier replacement cycle.
The company's broader pitch to policymakers has been for a voluntary, tonnage-linked scrappage incentive, where larger, heavier trucks receive proportionally greater support to encourage owners of the most impactful vehicles to upgrade first. The logic here lines up with the same reasoning behind the government's own recent PARIVARTAN scheme in Delhi-NCR, that a small number of ageing, high-emission commercial vehicles contribute a disproportionately large share of vehicular pollution, so targeting that segment specifically delivers the biggest impact per rupee spent.
Where Ashok Leyland Stands On Scrappage Itself
It's worth noting Ashok Leyland isn't just lobbying from the sidelines here, it's actively building out scrappage infrastructure of its own. The company has been setting up vehicle scrappage centres under a franchisee model through its Re.AL initiative, with plans to open three to four centres over roughly a year, starting with a first facility in Tamil Nadu. Ashok Leyland and its electric mobility arm Switch Mobility were also among the first OEMs to join the Delhi-NCR fleet modernisation scheme, offering an 8 percent discount on new trucks and buses to eligible buyers replacing older, high-emission vehicles.
That combination, actively building scrappage capacity while publicly questioning whether retrofit devices are a real substitute for it, gives a fairly clear picture of where Ashok Leyland's priorities sit. The company isn't against cleaner old trucks in principle, it's making the case that replacement, backed by proper financial incentives, does more for road safety, emissions and fleet productivity than a retrofit fix ever could on its own.
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Frequently Asked Questions on Commercial Vehicles
Q1. What is the retrofit device Ashok Leyland's MD is sceptical about?
Ans. It refers to a newly approved AIS 228 retrofit device, developed by an IIT Delhi-led team, that can be fitted to pre-BS6 heavy vehicles to cut particulate matter emissions by up to 90% and NOx by 60%, at a cost of around Rs 4,000.
Q2. What does Ashok Leyland want instead of retrofit devices?
Ans. Ashok Leyland has repeatedly pushed for a stronger, well-designed scrappage incentive scheme, arguing that replacing old trucks with new ones does more for safety, emissions and productivity than retrofitting ageing vehicles.
Q3. How old is India's average truck fleet, according to Ashok Leyland?
Ans. Ashok Leyland's management has said India's average truck fleet age has crossed 10 years, well beyond the historical replacement cycle of 7 to 8 years, which the company sees as a bigger underlying problem than emissions from any single vehicle.
Q4. Is Ashok Leyland involved in vehicle scrappage itself?
Ans. Yes, Ashok Leyland has been setting up its own vehicle scrappage centres under a franchisee model through its Re.AL initiative and it was among the first OEMs to join the Delhi-NCR fleet modernisation scheme, offering an 8% discount to buyers replacing older vehicles.