Minister of State for Power and Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal said the centre is preparing a road map to ensure that only electric vehicles will be produced and sold in the country by 2030.
Mr. Goyal, while interacting with media persons here on Friday, said the NITI Ayog was preparing the road map for the same. Different ministries had given their inputs and ideas, which are being worked out by experts, as part of a national mission to promote solar energy power plants and electric vehicles. As a significant step in this direction, the centre plans to procure a tleast 10,000 electric cars to phase out the government vehicles in New Delhi. He, however, did not specify any time frame for the same.
Rejecting hybrid vehicles as being unviable, he described it as an intermediate technology, which the country has no use for. India should opt for the best available technology. A few manufacturers are promoting hybrid vehicles because they do not have electric vehicles in their portfolio, he said.
‘Cleaner air’
The automobile industry is warm to the idea and has responded positively, said Mr. Goyal, adding that the shift from petrol and diesel fuelled vehicles will reduce India’s dependence on oil and the cost of import. Besides, it will strengthen the rupee and the current account deficit would disappear. But, above all, the air will be cleaner and will be an “end-to-end solution to address the issues of climate change”, he said.
Expressing confidence of the shift from petrol and diesel to electric vehicles by 2030, the minister said the Government will help establish charging stations to start with and later through franchisee model, create jobs for lakhs of entrepreneurs to establish charging stations across the country. “It will be self sustaining... the electric vehicles will be cheaper and the operating costs will also reduce, which will be an economic incentive for the public to buy the same,” he added.
LED bulbs
The centre was also giving a push to the use of LED bulbs, said Mr. Goyal, while pointing out that it had distributed 1.66 crore LED bulbs in Karnataka alone under the UJALA scheme. “We want to ensure that all bulbs used in the country by 2020 would be LED, resulting in both cost and energy savings.”
The minister claimed that there was power surplus in the country and the centre had set the most ambitious plan and road map for shoring up renewable energy production with a target of adding 175 Giga Watt of power generated through solar by 2022.
