Maharashtra Environment Minister, Aaditya Thackeray has written a letter to Union Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman asking for “consistent and radical reforms” in the electric vehicle (EV) sector, which will address a substantial portion of greenhouse emissions and air pollution.
The environment minister said that the current reforms at the national, as well as state level in the transportation sector, has set the foundation for India’s EV sector with Maharashtra recording a 153% growth in EVs in 20-21, albeit a low base.
In his letter, he said the cumulative investment in India’s EV sector could go upto Rs 19.7 lakh crore between 2020 and 2030. ‘Banks and NBFCs currently hesitate to lend for EVs due to perceived and real asset and business model risks.’ As a result EV buyers are not able to get interest rates and tenures comparable to their IC-counterparts.
Thackeray requested the Finance Minister to pursue the same with the RBI to make priority sector lending for EVs.
Furthermore, he says that India’s supply chain ecosystem and manufacturing process for EVs require more international exposure. Thus, global companies like ‘Tesla, Rivian, Audi, BMW among others’ must be given time bound concessionary custom rates for import of vehicles for retail sales. Thackeray also said that the present import duty structure on EVs (CKU, CBD and SKD) is not well-aligned with the EV ecosystem.
Image credits: Aaditya Thackeray / Twitter