Indian government has now backtracked from the proposal to impose a ban on petrol and diesel vehicles in the near future. The idea to restrain from any such future restrictions on IC engine vehicles was shared by the Union Minister Nitin Gadkari in a recent interaction.
¡°The shift to electric vehicles will happen in natural progression," said the road transport and highways minister - Gadkari. This comes after a collaborative objection by the automobile industry in the country to a proposal put forward by the government think tank - Niti Aayog earlier. As per the proposal, Niti Aayog suggested a complete ban on the production of three-wheelers by 2023 and conventional two-wheelers under 150cc by 2025.
At the time, Niti Aayog had asked the auto makers to come up with a plan to make this transition to electric vehicles in their portfolio. The OEMs opposed the plan citing the lack of time to make such a drastic conversion to a completely new technology.?
(Representative Image: BCCL)
The resistance was also backed by the worst decline in sales since the last two decades that the industry is currently experiencing. Auto makers believed that imposing such a drastic makeover in their production methods at such a time would only aggravate the problem further.
The objection has now led the government to take a new approach to the boost of electric vehicle use in the country. As per Gadkari, the government will now promote cleaner fuels but will not impose a ban on the conventional fuel vehicles for anytime in the near future.?
Any such ban, if at all, will be put after considerable discussion with the involved stakeholders, as per a government official cited by Livemint. Simultaneously, the government will maintain a constant push to increase the adoption of EVs in the country.?
A recent example of this was observed when the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a tax rebate of up to Rs 1.5 lakh on the interest on loans on EVs during the Budget 2019. In addition, the new budget also implied a lower GST of just 5%, down from 12% on all EVs sold in the country.?