Jaitley likely to chair first meet on electric vehicles policy this week
India will embark on its dream of an all-electric vehicle fleet by 2030 this week, with finance minister Arun Jaitley likely to chair a meeting that will be attended by other key ministers, to start work on an electric vehicles (EV) policy, according to four government officials.
Roads minister Nitin Gadkari, industries minister Anant Geete, environment minister Anil Dave, and power (and renewables) minister Piyush Goyal will attend the meeting, said the officials, who asked not to be identified.
The effort is being driven by the Prime Minister’s Office, two of the four added.
Spokespersons for the five ministries did not respond to queries seeking comment.
Mint learns that the initiative, which envisages all passenger and commercial vehicles in India being powered by electricity by 2030, will be led by the heavy industries ministry and will, in the first stage, see the creation of standards and specifications.
“There is unanimity for India going ahead with the EV programme. India has significant advantages in terms of number of vehicles to be bought and highdensity areas,” a third official said.
According to the govern- ment’s Auto Mission Plan 2016-26, India’s passenger vehicles market is expected to more than quadruple to 13.4 million units by 2026 from 3.2 million now if the economy grows at an average rate of 7.5% a year, making it the world’s second-largest market, after China’s.
The commercial vehicle industry is expected to grow to 3.9 million units from 700,000 at the end of 2014-15.
Any shift to EVs will help reduce pollutants and fuel imports.
This assumes significance given India’s energy import bill of around $150 billion, which is expected to reach $300 billion by 2030. India imports around 80% of its crude oil and 18% of its natural gas requirements. India imported 202 million tonnes of oil in 2015-16.
Currently, EV sales are low in India and rose 37.5% to 22,000 units in the year ended March 31 2016 from 16,000 in 2014-15; only 2,000 of these were cars and other four-wheelers, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam).
The government wants to see 6 million electric and hybrid vehicles on the roads by 2020 under the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020 and Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME). It has been offering subsidies on electric and hybrid vehicles of up to ₹29,000 for bikes and ₹1.38 lakh for cars under FAME, but the plan is to make the scheme economically viable on its own.
A consortium comprising Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, Ford India Pvt. Ltd, Mahindra Reva Electric Vehicles Pvt Ltd and Tata Motors Ltd was formed last June to help develop a supplier base for critical hybrid and electric vehicle components; Ford India and Maruti Suzuki India Ltd have since pulled out of it.