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India Approves Incentives for Electric Vehicles (Update1)
2010-11-22 13:35:52.293 GMT
(Adds executive comment in third paragraph.)
By Vandana Gombar
Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) -- India's federal government approved
incentives totaling 950 million rupees ($21 million) for makers
of electric vehicles.
The subsidy, applicable for hybrid and electric vehicles,
will be available until March 2012, Sohail Akhtar, a director in
the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, said by telephone today.
The government also plans to fund research and development of
electric vehicles.
The incentive "would allow us to invest in technology,
design, research and development and supply chain development,"
said K. B. Srinivasan, vice president of research at BSA Motors
division of Tube Investments of India Ltd.
The government approved an incentive of as much as 400,000
rupees for electric minibuses and 100,000 rupees for passenger
cars. For two-wheelers, the incentive would be 4,000 or 5,000
rupees, depending on the vehicle's speed.
For three-wheeled vehicles, the incentive is as much as
60,000 rupees, according to details of the Alternate Fuels for
Surface Transportation Program published on the website of the
Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
To claim the incentive, the manufacturers will have to
certify that at least 30 percent of components in the vehicles
were made locally, the guidelines say.
"This will double the market for electric vehicles by
March 2012, when the incentives will have had full impact,"
Sohinder Singh Gill, director at the Society of Manufacturers of
Electric Vehicles and chief executive officer at Hero Electric,
said by telephone.
About 85,000 electric vehicles were sold in the year ending
March 2010, about the same as the year before, he said. The
manufacturers are likely to pass on to consumers some part of
the incentive to boost volumes, he said.
--Editors: Mike Anderson, Jonas Bergman.
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To contact the reporter on this story:
Vandana Gombar in New Delhi at +91-11-4179-2038 or
vgombar@bloomberg.net
