On World EV day, Maharashtra govt holds key meeting to implement EV policy

On World EV Day, the Maharashtra government held a key meeting of concerned departments to review the implementation of its electric vehicle policy. The EV policy, unveiled earlier this year, aims to bring in as many as three lakh electric vehicles on road by March 2025.

Led by Aditya Thackeray, Maharashtra's Minister of Tourism and Environment, the meeting was held to take a stock of how the EV policy is being implemented. Thackeray took to social media platform Twitter to say, "We reaffirm our commitment to making Maharashtra, the hub for EV manufacturing and use."

Maharashtra government has announced incentives to boost the adoption of electric vehicles besides aiming to be India's top EV hub. The government has invested ₹930 crore towards its EV policy aiming 10 per cent of all new vehicle registrations by March 2025. The policy will also exempt all the EVs sold in the state from road tax, and all eligible EVs from registration charges.

The government also plans to develop 2,375 public and semi-public charging stations across seven major cities in the state and four national highways. Earlier in August, Thackeray inaugurated an EV enabled parking lot at the Koninoor building in Mumbai.

The review meeting of all relevant departments of the state government was held to ensure that the Maharashtra EV Policy 2021 will be implemented to the fullest. The state government will hold another meeting next week which will have an online workshop for OEMs, vehicle supply chains and citizens for better understanding of the policy.

Thackeray also said, "The Govt of Maharashtra is keen to push electric mobility on a large scale, seeing it as an opportunity to help our urban agglomerates and districts Race to Zero in carbon emissions from the transport sector." The state government aims to put at least 25 per cent of the urban fleet operated by the fleet aggregators like e-commerce companies, deliveries, logistics players as electric vehicles by 2025. It also aims 15 per cent of Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation’s (MSRTC) existing bus fleet to switch to electric.

The Maharashtra EV policy proposes a base incentive of ₹5,000 per kWh of battery capacity for electric vehicles, which is similar to that of two-wheelers. The maximum incentive for electric vehicles (four-wheelers) is capped at ₹1.5 lakh, and the minimum incentive (for two-wheelers) is capped at ₹10,000.

The EV policy also proposes that customers can avail early bird discount of up to one lakh on the purchase of an electric car or SUV before the end of this year.

The government has also announced charging infrastructure incentives. A slow public charging station can avail an incentive of ₹10,000 while a fast public charging station can get incentives of up to ₹5 lakh.

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