Electric cars may soon sport green number plates

Three-year free parking and toll waiver also part of NITI Aayog's draft policy

Indian roads may see a new colour on the number plates of cars — a green one, with the NITI Aayog planning such a move for electric vehicles. 

At present, the country has four kinds of number plates: White (with black numbers) for personal vehicles, yellow for commercial vehicles, black (with yellow numbers) for self-drive rental vehicles, and blue for embassy vehicles. 

A draft policy on e-vehicles, being prepared by the government think tank, has also suggested three-year free parking and toll waivers. According to a person familiar with the suggestions made in the draft policy, shopping, office and residential complexes may be asked to reserve 10 per cent parking space for e-vehicles and set up associated infrastructure. 
 

A phased restriction may also be imposed on registering new petrol and diesel vehicles in select cities, leading to a complete halt by 2030. Besides, 10 most polluting cities may be mandated to register a certain per cent of e-vehicles every year. The NITI Aayog is also in favour of making charging points mandatory at multi-storey apartments. 

What it entails 
 

• Phased restriction on registering new petrol and diesel vehicles in select cities, leading to a full stop by 2030

• Ten most polluting cities to mandatorily register certain percentage of electric vehicles 

• Malls, offices and residential complexes to reserve 10 per cent parking space for electric vehicles

The think tank has also focused on shared mobility to promote e-vehicles. Shared services can reduce the number of vehicles on roads while providing a mobility option that is four-ten times cheaper than a private car, the draft noted. 

The draft also said that the government would support e-vehicle demand through public procurement. The NITI Aayog anticipates all Central government and PSU vehicles (including those hired on contract) to be electric from January 2019. All these vehicles should also be locally made. EESL, a company promoted by power sector PSUs, has already floated a tender to procure 10,000 e-cars to be used by the power ministry. More tenders are likely soon. 

The draft also touches upon the need for a scrapping policy to remove old, polluting vehicles from the roads while ensuring owners get a fair value for the scrap. 

The government is of the view that an e-vehicle mission with these elements can help the country achieve 100 per cent sales of e-vehicles in the case of commercial three- and four-wheelers by 2030. The coverage in the case of two-wheelers and personal vehicles is expected to be 40 per cent by the same year. 

The objectives of the e-vehicle policy are to address air quality issues, introduce zero-emission mobility, develop global scale manufacturing of vehicles and parts (including batteries) for domestic use and exports and in the process also leverage renewable energy efforts and reduce oil imports. 

The draft policy was earlier circulated among various ministries for comments and was supposed to be put up with the Union Cabinet for approval. However, ministries such as road transport raised objections to the NITI Aayog projecting itself as the implementing body for the e-vehicle programme. The draft is being revised now. 

Companies believe that incentives are needed to drive e-vehicle sales due to their higher price. “Some policy intervention will be required. We will be able to specify the nature of these incentives after we do a proper costing and have more information,” R C Bhargava, chairman at Maruti Suzuki, said last month. 

Maruti, which owns a 50 per cent share in domestic passenger vehicle market, is commissioning a study to understand customer expectations and readiness for e-cars.

Despite its aggressive push for e-vehicles, the government is not planning to make such vehicles mandatory as the technology is still very expensive, a senior government official said on Wednesday. “It cannot be mandatory... The movement towards e-vehicles can, however, be easy because per capita car ownership is low in India compared to other countries. The ownership will grow,” the official said. On being asked whether there would be any subsidy element in the e-vehicle policy, which is expected to be approved by the Cabinet, the official said the objective was to do it at a size and scale that costs come down. 

Though last year Piyush Goyal and Nitin Gadkari spoke about converting all vehicles to electric by 2030, there is no such government notification as of now. “There are, at present, no plans under consideration of the department of heavy industry to make all vehicles electric by 2030,” minister of state for heavy industries Babul Supriyo had said in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.