Few takers for electric vehicles in Nagaland, most NE states

Morung Express News
Dimapur | March 14 

Despite the Union Government’s push, there are few takers for Electric BOV (Battery Operated Vehicles) in most North-East states including Nagaland with figures that are much below national average, which itself is very low. 

In absolute terms, there were just 60 EVs registration in Nagaland which has a total vehicle count of 4, 05,992. The proportion of EVs to vehicles was just 0.00015%, the second lowest in India. 

Arunachal Pradesh had the lowest proportion of 0.00008%, with just 24 EVs out of 2,90,622 total vehicles registered till March 6, 2023, informed the data provided by the Union Minister of State (MoS), Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI), Krishan Pal Gurjar in reply to a Starred Question in the Lok Sabha on March 14.

Likewise, Meghalaya (83), Mizoram (76) and Sikkim (21) had low penetration with proportions to total vehicles ranging from 0.00017-0.00022%.

Comparatively, with 1,052 registered EVs, Manipur had better average of 0.00194% though it was still below the All-India average of 0.00642%, informed the MoS’ reply based on VAHAN-4 Dashboard. 

Further information on the Dashboard informed that Nagaland is yet to register any EVs in 2023, while the figure for 2022, 2021 and 2020 respectively were 3, 2, and 11. The highest was in 2019 at 29 for a total of 45. The rest, 15 were those registered up to 2018. 

Exception in Assam & Tripura
Across India, there were 21,70,451 registered EVs against total vehicle count of 33,78,36,519 on March 6.

On a positive note, however, Assam and Tripura had the highest proportion of EVs uptake in India.

In Assam, there were 94,929 EVs against total vehicle count of 51,78,788 denoting 0.01833% proportion, the highest in India. 

At 12,229 EVs for a total of 7,00,334 vehicles, Tripura had the second best average of 0.01746% in India.

Delhi was in third terms of average at 0.01451% with 2,03,263 EVs against 1,40,12,76, according to the VAHAN-4 Dashboard cited by the MHI. 

VAHAN is the centralised online data repository maintained by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways regarding vehicle registration and other related issues across India. 

Measures to promote EVs
Meanwhile, the MoS Gurjar’s reply further informed that the ministry does not provide any incentive on prices of batteries in order to make EVs more affordable, but MHI has launched Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme, wherein incentives are given to the manufacturers of Advanced Chemistry Cells (ACC).

The scheme envisages establishing a cumulative ACC battery manufacturing capacity of 50GWh, he said. 

The Union Government has a launched the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India (FAME India) Scheme in 2015 to promote the use of Electric Vehicles (EV) in the country, he added. 

Phase-II of FAME India Scheme is being implemented for a period of 5 years, with effect from April 1, 2019 with a total budgetary support of Rs 10,000 crore and it is focused on supporting electrification of public and shared transportation through subsidies to 7,090 e-Buses, 5 lakh e-3 Wheelers, 55,000 e-4 Wheeler Passenger Cars and 10 lakh e-2 Wheelers, the MoS added. 

However, while State/UT-wise list of EVs supported under FAME-India Scheme Phase-II stood at 9,14,524 as of March 2, 2023, there were none for Nagaland. 

Out of 6,586 operational Public EV Charging Stations (PCS) across India, there were 6 in Nagaland. 

The MOS further informed that other measures to promote EVs usages included reduction of GST (Goods & Services Tax) on such vehicles from 12% to 5% while GST on chargers/charging stations for EVs has been reduced from 18% to 5%.

The MoRTH has announced that the battery operated vehicles will be given green license plates and be exempted from permit requirements, he said.

The road ministry has also issued a notification advising states to waive road tax on EVs, which in turn will help reduce the initial cost of the EVs, he added.