Jaitley inaugurates electric vehicle charging stations in North Block

As a step towards reducing carbon footprint and creating a more environmentally sustainable future, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley inaugurated electric vehicle charging stations in North Block and handed over the electric vehicle to the Finance Ministry officials here on Wednesday.

The Finance Ministry also signed an agreement with Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), an entity under the Ministry of Power, for the deployment of 15 Electric Vehicles for their officers.

EESL is planning to replace the government's 5,00,000 conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) cars with electric variants primarily. EESL has also established charging infrastructure across all states where EVs are being deployed.

To charge these vehicles, a total of 28 charging points- 24 slow charging points and 4 fast charging points- have been installed at the North Block. With these 15 EVs, the Department of Economic Affairs is expected to save over 36,000 litres of fuel every year and will also lead to a reduction of over 440 tonnes of CO2 annually.

Speaking on the occasion, Jaitley said, "Electric mobility is an attractive, sustainable and profitable solution to mitigate the climate change and to reduce the risk posed by vehicular emission to public health. We are glad to be a part of India's mission of rapid adoption of e-mobility."

He also added that EVs have the potential to support India's growth by enhancing manufacturing, job creation, and technical capabilities.

R K Singh, Union Minister of State (IC) for Power and New & Renewable Energy, said, "The Indian Government is committed to ushering in an era of clean, green and future-oriented technologies in the country. Today, we have achieved yet another milestone in that direction."

The Department of Expenditure has also issued an office memorandum for all the government offices in Delhi/NCR to switch to electric vehicles.

This initiative has been adopted to reduce GHG emissions from the transport sector and also reduce the impact of pollution level in the cities. So far, agreements and MoUs have been signed with central and state government departments in Delhi, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Andaman & Nicobar Administration and Telangana.