Niti Aayog proposes two-wheelers sold in India after 2025 should be electric vehicles: Gadkari
In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said Niti Aayog has also proposed that two-wheelers below the capacity of 150CC sold in the country after March 2025, should be electric ones only.
To ensure rapid transition towards electric mobility, Niti Aayog has proposed that two-wheelers below the capacity of 150 cc sold in the country after March 31, 2025, should be electric ones only, Parliament was informed on Thursday.
In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari also said the Niti Aayog has also proposed that three-wheelers sold in the country should be electric ones only after March 31, 2023.
Gadkari said the government has started working on meeting the demands of electricity for the new set of electric vehicles (EVs).
"Niti Aayog in its meeting held on May 14, 2019 regarding National Mission for Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage has proposed that after March 31, 2023, only electric three-wheelers (with lithium-ion and other advanced battery chemistry only) shall be sold under the category of two-wheelers and after March 31, 2025, all new sales under the category of two-wheelers," Gadkari said.
This has been decided after detailed deliberations with key stakeholders of different ministries for cleaning up Indian cities and to ensure rapid transition towards EVs and making India a manufacturing base for electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers, he said.
He added that the road map for implementation shall be finalised in consultation with stakeholders.
In response to a separate query, the minister said that currently, there are 3,97,184 EVs in the country.
In June, Niti Aayog asked conventional two- and three-wheeler makers to suggest within two weeks concrete steps towards transition to electric mobility keeping in mind 2025 deadline, according to sources.
The meeting was attended by top officials of major two-wheeler manufacturers, including Bajaj Auto Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj, TVS Motor Co Chairman Venu Srinivasan, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) President & CEO Minoru Kato along with SIAM Director-General Vishnu Mathur, and Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA) Director General Vinnie Mehta, among others.
Further, it was recently reported that the Indian government has set a target to achieve six to seven million sales of hybrid and electric vehicles by 2020 under the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP).
