The policy of electronic vehicles in India is supposed to be extremely effective in order to achieve development and growth in the country. The introduction of electronic vehicles can give rise to a pollution free, healthy environment to the masses of India. Hence, the policy for electronic vehicles in was initiated by government of India, through the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy in November 2010. Wherein several incentives were provided to the consumers who are voluntarily going ahead to purchase electronic and hybrid vehicles in India. The Government of India had announced a subsidy of 95 Crore rupees for hybrid and electronic vehicles. This policy of the central government provided benefits of financial assistance to the consumers of Rs.1, 00,000 on electric cars, Rs. 4000 on two wheelers, Rs.4, 00,000 on electric minibuses, and Rs.60, 000 for three wheelers. The policy was made under the condition that the manufacturers would need to certify that 30% of the components of vehicles were made in India. However, due to low awareness and interest from both the sides that is from the government and public, this scheme was not resulted very fruitful and got ended on 31 March 2012.
The new plan was announced by the government of India in April 2014, even hybrid vehicles were bought under a subsidy benefits scheme along with electronic vehicles. The plan had subsidies its rates up to Rs.1, 50,000 for cars and Rs. 30,000 for two wheeler vehicle. In this particular plan it was aimed by the Ministry of Energy and Ministry of Road and Transportation to have seven million electric vehicles on the roads of India by year 2020.
In the year 2017, Government of India made another major change in the policy of electronic vehicles activism in the Indian market. The Government of India started the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicles (FAME) scheme, which provides incentives to the consumers for purchasing electric vehicles. The electric vehicles are functional unless and until there is power storage in it, therefore the Government of India is increasing the charging infrastructure in nearby areas of highways, flyovers, main roads, streets, etc.
The FAME scheme offers incentives to the electric and hybrid vehicles ranging from Rs. 1,800 to 29,000 for two wheelers (which include speed vehicles, scooters, motorcycles, etc.) and Rs. 1.38 lacks for cars. FAME is an integral part of the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) by incumbent Central Government. The NEMMP is functioning under National Automobile Board of Ministry of Heavy industries where the policies are formulated for execution of plan for accessibility to clean the mobility plan formulated by several Ministries in the Center. Due to such planning programmes and incentives, several companies have came ahead and launched electric vehicles in India Heroelectric (Hero Motocorp), CEEON INDIA, Okinawa Autotech Pvt. Ltd, etc introduced electric scooters and motorcycles in India. Even Indian car manufacturers like Reva Electric Car Company (RECC) are working on making electric cars.
But the ground reality is the bureaucratic nature and high taxation policy of the Center and State governments that has resulted in this form of slow and reluctant movement towards the execution of a clean mobile plan initiated by Government of India. The manufactures are protesting in India because the cost of production is very high and though implementation of GST is done by Indian legislature but custom duties to several components of electronic vehicles still prevails. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report, India is among those countries which are providing least subsidies for manufacturing and purchasing the electric and hybrid vehicles. Even petrol and diesel vehicle manufacturers are against such movements of the Government. They perceive it as rival to their survival. The consumers are even facing a deficit budget in buying these electric vehicles, in accordance to this driving it and maintaining it is another issue.
The plan to shift to electronic vehicles from diesel and petrol is a very crucial task for the government and people of India. The lethargic approach to this implementation of the policy and this reluctant behavior of consumers and producers to use and manufacture electric vehicles in India is a major challenge for policy makers of NEMMP.
By Priyansh Mishra,
SYBA, Mithibai College.
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