India to formulate local electric vehicle standards to facilitate segment growth

With an aim to reduce set-up costs, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) are working on local standards for electric vehicles (EV) in India, the Mint reported.

The current acceptable global standards, Japanese, Chinese and European. Indian companies find it expensive to buy license from Japan, China and European countries. Home-grown regulations would also facilitate a pan-India EV charging grid, which could be pivotal for a turnaround in the segment as a lack of EV charging stations is posing a major hurdle to adoption of electric mobility, it added.

Manufacturing EVs and their parts domestically was also being pushed by the government under the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric and Hybrid vehicles (FAME) scheme, and local standards would be an addition in this direction by the NITI Aayog, it said.

On May 5, industry body CII pointed out that policies like FAME need to be supplemented with market creation and adoption, domestic manufacturing of vehicles, components and batteries, strategic sourcing of key raw material and skill development in India are needed to support policies like FAME to embrace mass adoption of electric vehicles by 2030.