The Union government unveiled a host of incentives for electric vehicles (EVs), including income tax rebates for buyers, lower customs duties on spare parts for such vehicles and tax breaks for local spare parts makers, as it seeks to transform the world’s third-largest oil importer into a global manufacturing hub for electric vehicles.
The announcements by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Union budget on Friday come at time when policy think-tank NITI Aayog is working with other ministries on a policy proposal to ban internal combustion engine-driven two- and three-wheelers by 2025 and 2023, respectively. Increasing EV sales has been a priority of the Modi government, which began on 1 April 2019 with the second phase of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric and Hybrid vehicles (FAME) scheme with an outlay of ₹10,000 crore to incentivize sales of such vehicles.
