The draft Delhi Motor Vehicles Aggregator Scheme deserves to be welcomed for being perhaps the first major initiative taken by any State to populate its geography with electric vehicles. By rolling out a schedule for vehicle aggregators (those who own or manage a fleet of more than 25 vehicles, according to the Scheme) to convert their fleet into EVs, the latter will certainly get a demand boost. This will complement the supply-side push by the Centre in the form of the production-linked incentive for EVs. According to the Centre’s e-vahan portal, India has close to one million EVs, of which Delhi has 1.32 lakh, while Uttar Pradesh is the leader; Karnataka and Bihar have posted higher sales than other States. Of the three million passenger vehicles sold in 2021-22, about 4.2 lakh were EVs, a jump from 1.34 lakh in 2020-21 (which was an atypical year). According to the Delhi government’s Outcome budget, the city-State registered 21,554 EVs in 2021-22, which was 10 per cent of the total vehicles registered in the year. If this share is to increase to 25 per cent of new vehicle registrations by 2024, as envisaged by the State government, there has to be an element of compulsion built into switching to EVs. It is quite obvious that aggregators would have to lead the epochal EV transition, for the sheer number of vehicles under them. These businesses run a million vehicles today, including two-wheelers. A recent report of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development noted that 100 per cent adoption of EVs by e-commerce deliveries in India by 2030 could prevent 76 million tonnes of CO2 emissions a year and reduce annual fossil fuel consumption by 32 billion litres. Of course, these numbers are predicated upon nation-wide EV adoption, but nevertheless the Delhi’s government’s scheme is a good first step.

The draft spells out a set of timelines for moving to EVs, for 2Ws, 3Ws and 4Ws in the commercial segment, such as deliveries; it also applies to aggregators running passenger services such as cabs in the 3W and 4W space. This curiously leaves out 2Ws running bike services, it seems. A staged transition is expected to be completed in four or five years. The onus is on the likes of Amazon, Flipkart, Zomato, Ola and Uber to kickstart this shift. The other aspects of the scheme pertain to the regulations on running these vehicles.

However, the draft policy does not seem to have given due regard to safety, charging infrastructure and vehicle scrappage. There is scope for improving the scheme here, especially in view of the recent fires in the blazing summer months and Delhi’s hot climate. The government could, for instance, seize this opportunity to prohibit lithium-cobalt technology and mandate safer battery technologies such as lithium titanium oxide. Similarly, rules for disposal or repurposing of old batteries would make sure that electric vehicles, while solving one problem, do not end up creating another. As for charging infrastructure, there seems to be no plan in place. Public charging points have to be identified, including land and the interested players, with solar panels leading this impetus. A nodal agency will have to be created just towards this end, such as Energy Efficiency Services Limited. Meanwhile, a battery swapping ecosystem needs to come up as well, so that the hesitation in shifting to EVs is overcome. Aggregators can nudge the larger public’s shift to EVs.

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