Business Today - August 30 2012 The government on Wednesday approved the roadmap for facilitating large-scale use of eco-friendly electric vehicles, including hybrids, by 2020. Today was the first meeting of the National Council of Electric Mobility (NCEM) which has approved the way forward and made a programmes of the next few months. The NCEM covers two-wheelers, four-wheelers and commercial vehicles. We are also for bringing monorail into this, Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath said after the first meeting of the NCEM. The meeting was also attended by Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel, New and Renewable Energy Minister Farooq Abdullah, Road Transport and Highways Minister C P Joshi, Science and Technology Minister Vayalar Ravi, Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena and other senior officials. The NCEM adopted the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020 (NEMMP 2020), which is the mission document for National Mission for Electric Mobility. The Plan lays the vision, sets the targets and provides the roadmap for achieving significant penetration of efficient and eco-friendly electric vehicle (including hybrids) technologies in India by 2020. Public transportation is very important and the governments role is enabling it and provide various incentives. This puts into motion very major step towards Indias contribution to global gas emission and Indias efforts towards climate change, Nath said. We discussed the target and roadmap of 2020 which includes demand, supply, research and development and also private sector who are going to implement it. The details of the action plan to achieve the target will be unveiled by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. According to industry, the government will save Rs 30,000 crore in fuel by giving Rs 14,000 crore in subsidy to industry for manufacturing electric vehicles. The industry contribution would be about Rs 8,000 crore. Patel said, It is important and this is our commitment towards clean and greener world. This mission has got the top priority of the government and all important stakeholders and ministries are also represented in the mission, he added. Last year, the Cabinet had cleared the National Mission for Electric Mobility. India has set a target to produce six million green vehicles by 2020, of which four to five million are expected to be two-wheelers. At present, there are only about 1,500 electric four-wheelers and about four lakh electric two-wheelers. Patel said China alone accounts for almost for one-and-half crore electric two-wheelers. We have a very long way to go. But, we need a sustained mission and auto industry wants to have a long-term commitment from the government for this programme, he said. We are likely to touch one crore automobile in the next few years or so. That is why, it is important that we have this mission. Automatic electric and hybrid mobility is the future, Patel said. The minister said, Electric vehicles will contribute in a big way to GDP and job creation in India. We feel that urbanisation is almost more than 40 per cent in the next few years. That is why the focus is on cleaner energy.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 01:24:58 +0000
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