New Delhi: Being a large automobile manufacturer, India has a big chance in green mobility. With the world going through a disruption, if we do not make the shift now, we could lose the opportunity to be the largest electric vehicle (EV) maker, said Amitabh Kant, G20 Sherpa and former CEO of NITI Aayog on Tuesday.
At the 2nd edition of ‘Sustainability Dialogues’ organised by Mercedes-Benz, Kant noted that to give a boost to electrification in the country, government levies 5% GST (goods and service tax) on BEVs (battery electric vehicles) and 48% for hybrid vehicles. He added that this tax structure is intended to “continue over a long period of time”.
Further, he said that the policy framework is to push for battery manufacturing, and “more electrification of mobility through all the policy levels available, including the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency) norms”.
Kant reasoned that India must be the first country to take the lead to drive electric mobility because we still have only 24 cars per 1000 people. India’s car penetration is lower when compared to a penetration of 1100 cars per 1000 people in the United States of America, and 950 cars per 1000 people in Europe.
“If India wants to increase its car penetration, it needs to ensure that right in the beginning it goes for electric mobility in a very big way,” he said.
New bus tenders
Kant stated that a recent government tender of about 6,000 buses in 7 cities showed that the operating expenditure for electric buses was about 13% to 14% cheaper than the conventional ICE (internal combustion engine) buses.
“The next tender we are doing is for 10,000 buses, and the third tender we will do for 50,000 buses,” he said.
Giving an example, he highlighted that the size and scale will help to bring down the prices in a big way, much like India demonstrated through procurement of about 320 million LED bulbs, which brought down the cost of LED bulbs to almost 1/10 of its original price.
