Electric Vehicles To Become Cheaper: NITI Aayog Proposes Scrapping Road Tax To Bring Cost At Par With Regular Cars

NITI Aayog members have arrived at a proposal to exempt electric vehicles (EVs) from road tax in a recent meeting, according to a statement given by the think tank’s CEO Amitabh Kant, who also revealed that the said proposal had been communicated to different states, reports The New Indian Express.

“In our meeting today we have proposed to the Chief Secretaries of the States that there should be no road tax for electronic vehicles,” Kant stated while speaking at the Energy Storage India 2019 conference.

Under the current tax regime, rates of road tax differ from state to state and there are different brackets for vehicles according to their price range. Last year, the government had also come up with a ‘one nation-one tax’ proposal to create a 12 per cent uniform road tax.

Kant explained that these initiatives are aimed at lowering the cost of ownership of electric vehicles to the same level as that of Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles. He added that oil companies would need to transform into energy companies in the future for India to be successful in moving away from fossil-fuel dependence.

Already, the government’s final guidelines and standards for EV charging infrastructure have accorded priority status to existing fuel retail outlets belonging to public sector firms to add public charging stations at their establishments.

Previously, Niti Aayog had also suggested creating a cess on ICE vehicles to cross-subsidise electric vehicles, although the recommendation was heavily criticised by Indian automobile corporations.