The State government’s upcoming policy on electric vehicles (EV) will push for provision of annual budgetary support towards measures to speed up adoption of the eco-friendly vehicles.
Industries and IT Secretary Jayesh Ranjan stated that inter-departmental consultations on the policy, whose draft was circulated some time ago, has concluded. He said a lump sum would likely be called for to help undertake the necessary interventions.
Measures to spur the demand, provide supply or create the required infrastructure would be undertaken, the senior official told a conference on electric mobility that industry body Assocham had organised in the city on Wednesday.
The policy would spell out benefits the State government would extend to support manufacturing of the vehicles as well as components besides in the field of battery technology and telematics.
“We have the inputs of all line departments. All possible interventions to take care of supply, demand and infrastructure has been identified in the policy,” he said, while maintaining a suspense on the launch date.
2030 deadline
Electric vehicle adoption on a mass scale has assumed significance in the country against the backdrop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi setting a 2030 deadline for registration of only EVs.
The cornerstone of the State's EV policy, he declared, would be its flexibility. “We have provided a fairly good deal of flexibility and have deliberately, very consciously refrained from committing to any number,” Mr. Ranjan said, pointing out that by setting numbers with regard to beneficiaries, incentives and the time frame policies tend to get cast in stone.
“The kind of flexibility that typically we don't see in government policy has been brought in. We have decided there will be a participatory decision making body, an empowered committee that will at the spur-of-the-moment decide if a particular intervention is the most needed one,” he said.
Such flexibility, he explained, was also needed, given the dynamic changes witnessed in the EV space.
Earlier, Director-Automotive in TSIIC Vijay Jaiswal told the opening session of the conference that several private firms had evinced interest in setting up charging infrastructure for EVs and by the end of this year, 100 such facilities were likely in the city.
President of trade and industry body FTAPCCI Gowra Srinivas underscored the significance of an attractive policy for EVs as they were key to addressing air pollution.
