In a bid to further vehicle electrification in the country, the central government is now working to establish a task force to create a roadmap for the electric vehicle (EV) industry.
The Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI) is working with various agencies to set up the task force, which would engage with various stakeholders, including the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), through various meetings and workshops.
As part of this, the Retail Motor Industry Organisation (RMI) will focus on electric two- and three-wheelers.
In a notification sent to the OEMs, the RMI said, “The Ministry of Heavy Industry is committed to aligning its future schemes and interventions with the Government of India’s vision of Viksit Bharat. To further this objective, the Ministry has collaborated with various think tanks to establish (the ) EV task force.”
Inc42 has accessed the notification.
The first meeting, focusing on OEM and vehicle testing agencies in the EV sector, will be held on April 25, 2024.
The primary discussion points for the first meeting with OEMs and vehicle testing agencies include identifying the challenges in scaling EV manufacturing in the country and identifying ways to establish India as a global manufacturing leader in this segment.
“Future convenings will target consultations with other key stakeholders, including charge point operators and battery swapping solution providers, fleet aggregators and first and last-mile service providers, financial institutions and EV retrofitters, policy think tanks, experts, practitioners from states and cities, and EV users – including auto unions and gig workers,” the notification sent to the EV manufacturers read.
Meanwhile, Mint reported that the MHI will finalise the setup of the task force in collaboration with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and other agencies.
The ministry has asked different agencies for inputs on 11 topics to build an action plan for EV adoption in the country, as per the report.
As per the report, FICCI and GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit), a German government and the EU agency, will focus on charging infrastructure.
While the Indian Battery Swapping Association (IBSA) has been asked to lead the initiatives on battery swapping, the World Bank is reportedly involved in this project to oversee matters related to electric buses.
Others including WRI India, the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA), and the US Agency of International Development (USAID) have also been assigned with various tasks by the MHI as part of this project.
Meanwhile, in a separate notification sent to the EV OEMs on Tuesday (April 23), the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) said that it will lead the task force that is being created to accelerate the adoption of electric trucks, supported by University of California, Davis and others.
It is pertinent to note that this comes at a time when there is still no clarity if the Centre plans to launch a third phase of its Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme to promote EV adoption in the country via demand incentives.
FAME-II was introduced in 2019 with an initial total budget of INR 10,000 Cr to support 10 Lakh electric two-wheelers, 5 Lakh electric three-wheelers, 7,000 electric buses, and 55,000 electric four-wheeler passenger cars through subsidies to promote EV adoption.
The FAME-II scheme came to an end on March 31, 2024. Despite the industry’s demand for an extension of the scheme or the launch of FAME-III, the Centre did not make any such announcement in the interim budget.
While more development on the front is expected post general elections, the MHI recently allocated INR 500 Cr for a new Electric Mobility Promotion Scheme 2024, which will be valid for four months till July 2024. The new special scheme aims to support 3.33 Lakh electric two-wheelers and 38,828 electric three-wheelers.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Ather Energy, Ola Electric, Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, TVS and Kinetic Green have received the Centre’s nod to claim subsidies for sales of two-wheeler EVs under the new scheme.
