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The subsidy scheme on e-vehicles is expected to get Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s nod soon. The proposal under the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020 was approved by the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) last week.
A Government official said that since the Finance Minister has the power to approve up to ₹1,000 crore for such schemes. “The proposal has gone directly to the Finance Ministry for getting the approval instead of Cabinet. It will take 10-15 days to go to the Finance Minister,” a senior Government official told BusinessLine .
He said the initial phase will be rolled out within the budget of ₹1,000 crore.
According to him, the Government is trying to bring in the scheme at the earliest so that environment-friendly vehicles can be promoted. Till now, only small schemes have been in place, through the discretion of the state Governments.
For example, States such as Delhi and Gujarat are giving 15 per cent subsidy on the maximum retail price and zero per cent subsidy on value added tax.
However, once the NEMMP project comes into stream, it will benefit electric vehicle manufacturers, and companies such as Hero Electric and Mahindra & Mahindra would have the first mover advantage.
Other companies such as Avon Cycles, Electrotherm and Lohia Auto will also benefit from the scheme. The electric vehicles industry is in dire need of such schemes.
According to the Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles, only around 20,000 e-vehicles were sold in 2013-14, compared with 42,000 units in 2012-13.
However, under the new scheme, the industry is expected to get a fillip and sales are expected to get a boost.
The Government, under the scheme, will set up a centralised (computerised) system that would be integrated with the manufacturers and the subsidies would be directly provided to them.
The NEMMP was formulated in 2011 and aims to provide subsidies worth ₹14,000 crore to electric vehicle manufacturers over the next six years.
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