What's behind Arvind Kejriwal government's push for switching to electric cars in Delhi

File image: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal

The Delhi government on February 4 launched an eight-week long awareness campaign urging people to adopt electric vehicles in the fight against pollution.

With its Electric Vehicle policy, the government aims at achieving an ambitious target of having at least 25 percent of vehicles registered in Delhi running on electricity by 2024.

“We want to ensure that Delhi has at least 25 percent electrical vehicles by 2024. People should buy more EV vehicles. Delhi government is offering subsidy for this,” chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said while launching the #SwicthDelhi campaign.

Of the 73 lakh vehicles registered in Delhi at present, just 0.2 percent are electric.

आइए प्रदूषण के ख़िलाफ़ एक जंग मिलकर लड़ें, अपने वाहनों को Electric vehicle पर Switch करें। pic.twitter.com/QNLCdDWYHq

— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) February 4, 2021

The EV policy, announced in December 2019 and notified by the Delhi government in August last year, is aimed at boosting the economy, creating jobs and reducing air pollution by offering subsidies and waivers on road tax and registration for electric vehicle purchases in Delhi.

The Delhi government had in October officially notified a full waiver on road tax and registration fee for battery-operated vehicles. This benefit is in addition to a subsidy of Rs 10,000 per kWh for the first 1,000 electric four-wheelers, capped at Rs 1,50,000 per vehicle. For two-wheeler, auto-rickshaw, rickshaw and freight vehicles, running on environment-friendly fuel, the subsidy is Rs 5,000 per kWh of the battery capacity up to Rs 30,000 per vehicle.

Despite the government’s publicity drives, less than ten percent of e-vehicles had received subsidy under the scheme in the first five months of the policy, according to reports. Since August, Delhi registered over 5,000 EVs till December 22 last year. But, of these, only 21% (1,068) vehicles got the incentives, according to a report in Hindustan Times.

Officials said that the demand for EV vehicles would go up as the car manufacturers are coming up with more options in the market. The government is also setting up 100 charging stations in Delhi to facilitate the switch to e-vehicles.

Today, as we launch this 8 week campaign, I urge all individual & fleet owners to adopt EVs. Your govt is leading this fight against pollution by shifting to EV.
I assure you, we're here to help you switch to sustainable transport. For our city & our future, Let's #Switchdelhi. pic.twitter.com/eoc5i1KrWx

— Kailash Gahlot (@kgahlot) February 4, 2021

The government has termed the policy a significant step towards ensuring cleaner air in Delhi, which faces bad air issues, particularly in the winter months.

“Vehicles are the biggest source of pollution in the capital and amount to 40% of PM2.5 air pollution levels and 80% of carbon monoxide in the air. Over their lifetime, these EVs are estimated to save approximately Rs 6,000 crores worth of oil and liquid natural gas consumption,” Kejriwal had said while launching the EV Policy last year.

Officials said that the target of the policy is to reduce carbon emissions by 4.8 million tones by 2024. To facilitate this, the Delhi government has started adding 1,000 low floor AC buses to the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) bus fleet.