From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: If you have to buy a new car or a scooter, just wait for the new financial year from April 1 to see the electric vehicles’ prices go down by 30% and no more hassle of spending time at the charging points that are still not coming up fast to match the petrol pumps everywhere.
This will be possible because of a small paragraph in the Union Budget on Feb 1 on the “Battery Swapping Policy” that everyone missed out.
You need not search for the charging points any longer. This is possible because of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman being considerate for those buying the electric vehicles: “Considering the constraint of space in urban areas for setting up charging stations at scale, a battery swapping policy will be brought out and inter-operability standards will be formulated. The private sector will be encouraged to develop sustainable and innovative business models for ‘Battery or Energy as a Service’. This will improve efficiency in the EV eco-system.”
The price of the electric car will be down by 30% since you have not to pay for the batteries that cost 30-40% of the total price. The government is also planning to give more concessions to the buyers of the electric vehicles to increase their number, which is currently low at around 10 lakh, including 2.5 lakh in Uttar Pradesh and 1.26 lakh in Delhi.
The new policy envisages any car user to swap the car battery and that too from any company by paying a security deposit for batteries on the rental. The user can exchange the battery from the stores once its charge is finished, without bother about its maintenance and the charging duration.
The GST on the electric vehicles is just 5% as against 48% on the petrol vehicles. The Centre has already submitted a proposal to reduce the GST on battery and its services from 18% to 5% to bring it at par with the tax on the electric vehicles. It is also persuading the state governments to give relief to the buyers of the electric vehicles to increase their population fast.
Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari is giving push for the people changeover to the electric vehicles, setting the target of promoting 30% private cars, 40% buses and 70% transport vehicles using electricity to run them instead of using petrol, diesel or CNG. He is promoting the private sector stores to rent out the electric batteries.
He has also envisaged a special electric vehicle mobility zone in Delhi and Pune for exclusive registration of the electric vehicles only.
As much as 81% of the Lethium batteries used in cars and scooters are manufactured in India while many institutions are researching to reduce the price of these batteries, say the officials of the ministry who are in touch with them.
