Policy on electric vehicles likely to be released in three weeks

Government wants to increase share of electric vehicles to 30%

J. Radhakrishnan, Principal Secretary, Transport Department, trying an electric vehicle at the launch of Society for Smart E-Mobility (SSEM) in Coimbatore on Friday.

The State government will release a policy for electric vehicles within three weeks, said J. Radhakrishnan, Principal Secretary, Transport Department, here on Saturday.

Speaking at the launch of Society for Smart E-Mobility (SSEM), he assured its members that the policy will focus on encouraging both manufacturers as well as users of electric vehicles.

“The people of Coimbatore are innovators or at best, early adopters,” said Mr. Radhakrishnan while praising members of SSEM for timing its launch prior to the release of the electric vehicle policy. He offered to be a “permanent standing invitee” for the committees of the State government.

Noting that electric vehicles in Tamil Nadu constituted only around 0.5% of the total number of vehicles, Mr. Radhakrishnan estimated that the share of electric vehicles would increase “stage by stage” and would reach 25% to 30% in future.

T.P. Rajesh, Additional Commissioner for Industries and Commerce, assured the members of SSEM that the State government would “create the ecosystem” for the manufacture of electric vehicles. He said the State government had introduced the online single window approvals for the industries which the electric vehicle manufacturers could utilise.

The founder patrons of SSEM — K. Ramasamy, chairman, Roots Group of Companies; Shankar Vanavarayar, president, Kumaraguru Institutions; Gaur Dattatreya, senior vice-president and head — Mobility Solutions, Robert Bosch and Hemalatha Annamalai, chief executive officer, Ampere Vehicles – spoke about various aspects of electric vehicles. They submitted a list of recommendations to Mr. Radhakrishnan and Mr. Rajesh to be included in the upcoming policy.

250 electric buses

Mr. Radhakrishnan told presspersons later that 250 electric buses for the western districts (100 for Coimbatore and 50 each for Tirupur, Salem and Erode) would arrive by February 2020. Adequate infrastructure to power the electric buses such as charging stations would be set up, he said. “The policy will encourage setting up of solar panels,” he said. To a question regarding the impact of electric vehicles on auto spare parts industry, Mr. Rajesh said the slowdown in the automobile sector was a “temporary phenomenon” and that State government was taking steps to address the concerns of the sector.