Govt to release 'Mission Plan II' for auto industry in Sep

The government will come out by September this year with the draft Mission Plan II for the automotive industry for the 2016-2026 period, a senior government official today said.
Ambuj Sharma, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, said that the first version of Mission Plan was released in 2006 for the period up to 2016.
"... That time in 2006 it (automotive) was USD 35 billion big industry and by 2016 it should reach USD 145 billion. In terms of employment from the present 11 million both direct and indirect, we hope to reach 35 million by 2016," he added.

"We are hoping to maintain the current momentum and hoping to release the Mission Plan II, that is for the next 10 years 2016-26 which may be released sometime in September 2015," he told reporters on the sidelines of a conference on Automotive, Research and Development Trends, organised by CII.
"Currently, we are standing almost midway. If we take the turnover (of the automotive industry), we have reached USD 78 billion today that almost doubled. On the job creation, we have reached 28-29 million jobs", he said.
According to him, the number of passenger cars was expected to reach nine million by 2022 from the present three million. The total two-wheelers size should reach 33 million from the present 15 million.

"For the electric vehicle, we have an idea of six to seven million by 2020 from almost nil today" he said.

On the setting up of National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRiP), promoted by the Centre, he said the labs at the Oragadam centre situated near Chennai, was expected to be ready by end of this year and test tracks to be operational by middle of next year.
"There investments will be around Rs 700 crore. For the total scheme, the sanctioned amount is Rs 2,288 crore which will end up to Rs 3,500 crore for all the seven centres.Some are coming up in Rae Barelli, Manesar", he said.

Responding to a query about allocation of funds for developing Hybrid cars, he said the Finance Ministry has sanctioned about Rs 795 crore for two years whcih include Rs 500 crore for incentives, Rs 200 crore for technology and remaining for infrastructure and pilot projects.
Referring to provision of infrastructure facilities for charging the electric cars, he said, "even by 2020 we will have about 1.50 million pure electric cars. That will take only 700MW of power. Today, the total production capacity is 2.50 lakh MW, which will reach four lakh MW by 2020", he said.