Electric vehicle policy being developed to curb pollution: Kejriwal

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said his government is mulling over a new electric vehicle policy to reduce pollution in the national capital.

"We are working on reducing pollution in the national capital and an electric vehicle policy is being developed for the city. A draft policy has already been made and we are further holding talks with the experts, NGOs and other concerned people. We are planning to buy around 1,000 electric buses," Kejriwal told ANI.

Last month, the Delhi government had released a draft of the Delhi Electric Vehicle Policy 2018 for feedback from the public.

The policy recognised that a new approach is required to kick-start EV adoption in the national capital, and therefore, seeks to put in place several measures that address the key hurdles to EV adoption and target 25 per cent of all new vehicle registrations to be electric by the year 2023.

As per the government, the new policy will also seek to promote large-scale job creation in driving, selling, financing, servicing and charging of electric vehicles.

The development of a new policy to tackle pollution in the national capital comes at a time when air quality in the region has deteriorated owing to the onset of winter.

According to the Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR), the overall air quality of Delhi was recorded at 323 on Tuesday morning, falling under the 'very poor' category.

AQI between the range of 51 to 100 is considered as satisfactory, 101-200 is moderate, 201-300 falls under the category of poor. 300-400 is considered as 'very poor' and 401-500 falls under the 'hazardous' category.

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