Govt approves green licence plates for e-vehicles

•  The government has approved this new move to a different coloured plate specially for zero emissions vehicles for both private and commercial use.
• The private electric vehicles will have a green backing and white fonts while commercial electric vehicles will have a green background and yellow fonts.
• These will also be applicable to electric busses and other electric commercial vehicles that are road legal.
• Currently, Tata Motors and Mahindra make electric cars in India for both the private and commercial sectors.
• This special plate will also give electric vehicles certain perks on the road. Apart from easier identification, the electric vehicles will get preferential treatment in parking, free entry into certain proposed 'congested zones' along with proposed concessions in tolls on the current road networks.
• For commercial vehicles, the government has proposed and is considering an exemption from permits. This will help boost the growth of e-rickshaws, e-busses and e-taxis (especially in the urban areas) around the country.
• Apart from special plates, the government is also proposing allowing individuals between the age of 16-18 to ride electric scooters without a license. Currently, youth between 16-18 years are only allowed to ride mopeds under 50cc. The government has also pushed for a reduction of GST on electric batteries from 28 per cent to 12 per cent in order to make electric cars even cheaper. The overall GST on electric cars in India is already at 12 per cent.
• Government of India launched the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020 in 2013.

About National Electric Mobility Mission Plan:

• It aims to achieve national fuel security by promoting hybrid and electric vehicles in the country.
• There is an ambitious target to achieve 6-7 million sales of hybrid and electric vehicles year on year from 2020 onwards.
• Government aims to provide fiscal and monetary incentives to kick start this nascent technology.
• It is expected to save 9500 Million Liters of crude oil equivalent to Rs. 62000 Cr. savings.
• Government has launched the scheme namely Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles (FAME India) under NEMMP 2020 in the Union Budget for 2015-16 with an initial outlay of Rs. 75 Cr. The scheme will provide a major push for early adoption and market creation of both hybrid and electric technologies vehicles in the country.
• The thrust for the Government through this scheme will be to allow hybrid and electric vehicles to become the first choice for the purchasers so that these vehicles can replace the conventional vehicles and thus reduce liquid fuel consumption in the country from the automobile sector.
• It is envisaged that early market creation through demand incentive, in-house technology development and domestic production will help industry reach a self-sufficient economies of scale in the long run by around the year 2020.

By: Vishal