- Niti Aayog has moved a Cabinet note, with different responsibility for different ministries
- The road transport and highways ministry have been proposed to prepare a framework to phase out the sale of diesel and petrol vehicles by 2030
- The ministry has also been asked to pilot an e-highways programme – with an overhead electricity network – to enable trucks and buses to operate as electric vehicles on select national highways
NITI Aayog has proposed that after 2030, only electric vehicles should be sold in India. The think tank believes that this will expand the scope of the clean fuel technology beyond two-and three-wheelers in the country.
According to the Niti Aayog, as transport remains the most demanding sector for oil, about 100 per cent electric vehicle sale by 2030 may reduce India’s import dependence by a big margin.
Actions suggested
A ToI report revealed that Niti Aayog has moved a Cabinet note, with different responsibility for different ministries. The road transport and highways ministry have been proposed to prepare a framework to phase out the sale of diesel and petrol vehicles by 2030. The ministry has also been asked to pilot an e-highways programme – with an overhead electricity network – to enable trucks and buses to operate as electric vehicles on select national highways.
Niti Aayog’s Cabinet proposal also suggests that Gadkari’s ministry should issue some norms for cab aggregators to replace all diesel and petrol vehicles with EVs by 2030. Also, the heavy industries ministry would replace all diesel/ petrol vehicles with EVs of all central ministries, agencies and public sector by 2030.
The existing loopholes
As per Niti Aayog, the barriers in wider adoption of electric vehicles lie in areas of consumer perception, the efficiency of batteries, driving range, speed of EVs, charging time, creation of infrastructure for charging, battery recycling and technology development. The most important component, the lithium-ion battery is very expensive in the country due to no domestic manufacturing making the price of electric cars very high.
Possible solutions
It believes that delinking battery from vehicles through battery swapping could be a way forward, but it demands the creation of a smart infrastructure of swappable batteries with pay-per-use business models, an extensive swapping-station network, and integrated payment and tracking systems. In order to meet the target of setting up of the Giga-scale battery manufacturing, the Aayog has proposed financial incentives for the investors including cash subsidy on the basis of overall domestic value addition per kilowatt hour (KWh) basis.
