The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways today issued an advisory to all state transport departments with regards to faster adoption of electric vehicles and incentivising electric vehicle purchase as well. These measures include using green registration plates for zero emission vehicles, exemption of EVs requiring a permit for transport vehicles. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has now given a deadline of August 31, 2019 and expects all state transport departments to put the Centre's EV adoption plan into action by then.
(All new electric vehicles should have green registration plates)
All electric vehicles/zero emission vehicles will have green registration plates. Also, these vehicles will have additional benefits such as waiver from toll charges and parking fees, priority parking slots and exclusive access to EVs in the congested zones of cities in India. State transport departments have been asked to create preferential policies for EV adoption such as land allotment for charging infrastructure and mandating charging infrastructure in malls, housing societies and public parking spaces.
Mahesh Babu, CEO, Mahindra Electric, said "India's FAME policy will play a vital role in promoting the use of electric vehicles in the country. Introduction of green number plates and exempting electric vehicles from the permit by MORTH are the right steps that will boost India's last and first-mile connectivity options. We are very happy to see that Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH) is recommending this along with road tax exemptions to all the state governments which will yeild faster implementation of these processes. We are sure that state governments will speed up the registrations to turn India's EV dream into a reality."
According to the government, the shared mobility space has seen an encouraging growth, thanks to taxi and auto aggregators. Since shared vehicles end up covering more distances, focus should be on converting taxis and autos to electric. But the MoRTH notification doesn't say how to go about increasing the number of electric vehicles in the shared mobility space.
It was in October 2018 that MoRTH issued a circular saying that the Centre has exempted electric vehicles from obtaining a passenger transport permit. In fact, there were a few state governments which were insisting on having permits for electric three-wheelers despite the central government saying that there will be no permits required and no additional taxes either. With this notification, electric three-wheelers will now be allowed to get themselves registered in all states of the country.
The Department of Heavy Industries said that under the FAME-II scheme, subsidies will be provided on electric vehicles being used as transport vehicles. There are a few states which have waived road tax for electric vehicles resulting in a lower purchase cost. But with this circular, the central government has requested all states which haven't waived off road tax for EVs, to reconsider and reduce the road tax to maximum possible extent so as to reduce the initial cost of vehicle to the buyers.
