Bhubaneswar: In a bid to promote eco-friendly and non-motorised mode of public transport, the state Commerce and Transport department has initiated the process for drafting an Electric Vehicle (EV) Policy.
The Centre has announced to invest Rs 10,000 crore for Phase-2 of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME-2) scheme till 2022 to increase the number of commercial EVs.
States like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu have notified their EV policies while Delhi and Telangana are in the process of preparing such policies.
Therefore, the state government has decided to prepare the EV Policy to make Odisha an attractive destination for manufacturers of EVs by strengthening the ecosystem, thereby generating employment, official sources said here, Monday.
At a high level meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy recently, it was decided to provide incentives like exemption on State GST and stamp duty, interest subsidies on loan and incentives for industrial parks, the
source said.
As per the preliminary discussion, the government may give subsidy up to 15 per cent of cost or a maximum of Rs 1 lakh per vehicle for commercial and individual use of EVs. The policy will have provisions for charging stations and mobile charging vans to provide on-road assistance to citizens.
The government is also planning to provide capital subsidy to apartment associations for setting up of charging points in the parking areas.
The road tax is likely to be reduced from 3 per cent to zero to attract e-vehicles on the road.
The sources said operational cost in e-vehicles is very low as compared to diesel operated vehicles.
While the average cost per km in diesel operated vehicles (auto-rickshaws) comes around Rs 2, for e-vehicles (e-rickshaw) it comes around 20 paisa per km, they added.