Government evaluating consumer incentives to support EV industry

In a bid to reach its ambitious target of complete electric mobility by 2030, the Indian government is currently considering offering consumers incentives to purchase and use EVs.

NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, speaking at the International Conference on Electric Vehicles - Future Roadmap for India in New Delhi, said that the government’s target for electric vehicle use would be conducted through holistic development of the automobile and allied industries, without hindering growth prospects.

The automobile and component industry contributes 7.2 percent to India’s total GDP, creates over 30 million jobs and exports almost 25 percent of its total manufacturing.

At the conference organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), Kant said that the aim is to accelerate the pace of the electric vehicle segment, while ensuring that India maintains its size and scale, its GDP share, employment share, which is possible only if we are able to produce in size and scale.

“We will continue to support this movement in a very big way. We will continue to support all OEM and Indian manufacturers. We would like major disruptions to take place in India, we would like interoperable charging systems and we would like to support EVs by a vast range of initiatives like lower road taxes. The government will act as a catalyst to support this entire movement so that the automobile and auto component sector continues to play a very major and significant role in India’s GDP, job creation as well as exports,” said Kant.

“As a policy framework this cuts across several departments – Ministry of Road Transport, Power, Heavy Industries – but we in NITI Aayog will continue to coordinate and drive this movement,” he added.

Addressing the concerns of the automobile industry, he said, “The change is inevitable but we should do it in a manner where we do not disturb combustion vehicle manufacturing. We should do to size and scale which will enable India to become a centre for manufacturing, battery manufacturing for usage as well as for exports. It is possible to do this in India is because our per capita usage of cars is still very low,” concluded Kant.