Maharashtra announces policy, aims for 10% share of electric vehicles by 2025

As per the policy, in regard to new vehicle registration, the state targets a 10 per cent share of EVs, 10 per cent of two-wheelers, 20 per cent of three-wheelers and 5 per cent of four-wheelers in 2025.

At least 25 per cent of the urban fleet operated by the fleet aggregators or operators in the state will transition to EVs by 2025. This applies to e-commerce companies, last-mile delivery/logistic players and mobility aggregators operating in urban areas.

It further proposed to convert 15 per cent of state-owned road transport corporation’s existing bus fleet to electric by 2025. Starting April 2022, all new government vehicles, either owned or leased, operating in the major cities will be electric cars.

The policy proposed to develop 2,500 charging stations in seven major urban agglomerates of Mumbai (1,500), Pune (500), Nagpur (150), Nashik (100), Aurangabad, Amravati and Solapur and four major highways – Mumbai-Pune, Mumbai-Nashik, Mumbai-Nagpur and Pune-Nashik.

The policy also stated that buyers purchasing EVs, except for e-buses, before December 31, 2021, shall be eligible for an “early bird discount” of Rs 5,000/kWh of the vehicle battery capacity. This discount will be available to buyers over and above the demand incentive of Rs 5000/kWh per vehicle except for e-buses. It has further proposed scrappage incentives for the vehicles depending on their type. However, license would be required for EVs.

The policy stated that all EVs sold in the state will be exempted from road tax till 2025. The owners will also be exempted from payment of fees for issue or renewal of registration certificates. A buyer will be able to avail the incentives only once for the respective vehicle category. Fleet operators will be able to avail incentives for whole their fleet.

For supply side incentive, the policy stated that incentives will be provided to make the state more lucrative for setting up manufacturing as well as research and development facilities such as component manufacturing, vehicle assembly, cell manufacturing, electronics part manufacturing and recycling of EVs and EV batteries.

“We have analysed the incentives given by other states. We have given the maximum number of incentives in the policy,” said Aaditya.

The policy also provided incentives for developing charging infrastructure such as public and semi-public charging stations. It further offered additional incentives on assured buyback of vehicles and providing a warranty for batteries.

The urban local bodies will be encouraged to provide property tax rebates to residential owners for installing private charging infrastructure in their premises. The non-fiscal incentive includes time-bound registration of EVs and urban local bodies to be encouraged to provide lane and parking preferences to EVs, among others.

The maximum budgetary provision required for demand-side and charging infrastructure incentives is Rs 930 crore in four years. A chief secretary-led committee will assess the effectiveness of the policy and revise it accordingly.