Mumbai, Feb. 19 -- In an ingenious market development, the government's efforts to have you scrap your old, polluting car is ending up providing a hefty discount to another buyer of a different vehicle-potentially lakhs of rupees for luxury car buyers. It also gives you, the seller, more money than just the scrap value of the old car.

Here's an example of how this works. You scrap your 15-year-old car, which is at the end of its operational life, at an authorized scrapping yard, also called as registered vehicle scrapping facilities (RVSF). You get two things-a certificate of deposit and, say, about Rs.20,000 for the value of the car.

Then, you sell this certificate at a government-backed online platform-DigiELV.com-to the highest bidde...