E-Paper
Odisha becomes 10th state to announce policy on electric vehicles
The policy aims to achieve a target of 20% registration of battery-operated electric vehicles out of the total vehicle registration by 2025.
In a bid to cut down carbon emissions in the state, the Odisha cabinet approved the Electric Vehicle policy days after Ola Electric, the subsidiary of the unicorn Indian ride-hailing start-up, launched its first electric scooter.
Odisha chief secretary Suresh Mohapatra said that the policy aims to achieve a target of 20 per cent registration of battery-operated electric vehicles out of the total vehicle registration by the year 2025. With this, Odisha becomes the 10th state to have its own EV policy.
Mohapatra said the objective of the policy is to achieve the adoption of 20% battery electric vehicles in all vehicle registrations by 2025, to promote the manufacture of electric vehicles and their components including batteries in the state, promote innovation and facilitate research and development in the areas relating to electric vehicles and batteries.
Under the proposed policy guidelines, it has been decided to extend financial incentives, such as incentives available for manufacturing industries, purchase incentives, scrapping incentives, interest subvention in loans, waiver of road tax and registration fees, during the policy period.
“To reduce the rapid global temperature, which has been a concern for everyone for the last few decades, it is now necessary to reduce the emissions caused by different categories of vehicles plying on the road using the traditional fossil fuels since they contribute a lot to climate change. It is high time to reduce such emissions by reducing the use of such traditional fuel and accelerate the pace of adoption of electric vehicles,” said Mohapatra.
As per a Niti Aayog report, Odisha has a total fleet of 4,831 electric vehicles on road. Due to the low density of EVs, the state has only 18 EV charging stations at present. Neighbouring states like Bihar and Chhattisgarh have a higher electric vehicle density of 26,469 and 5,969 respectively.
