Telangana Government Plans afoot to shift public transport to electric mode

Hyderabad: Telangana Government has evolved a ten-year action plan to convert all Government vehicles into electric vehicles (EVs).

This will be announced in the new policy that is to be announced soon. It aims at transforming the entire public transport into electric mode. It will also announce sops to encourage use of electric vehicles by individuals. Some sops for the organisations and cab operators would also be included in the policy.

According to sources, a slew of sops like exemption of registration charges on personal vehicles, interest-free loans to buy electric vehicles and allowing only the electric vehicles in IT zones are among the notable decisions to be included in the Telangana's first EV policy.

It may be mentioned here that the state cabinet had cleared a decision to attract huge investments in the EV segment. As a follow up, the draft policy is being prepared in consultation with international agencies mainly the automobile industry and electric battery manufacturing companies in the state.

A senior official said that the EV policy will make the Telangana state the preferred destination for electric vehicle and component manufacturing by 2025.

Road tax exemption and permits for the corporate sector to utilise corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds to buy electric vehicles for employee transportation will be some of the important incentives likely to be announced in the policy.

As a first step, the Government is considering to set up 100 charging points to promote electric vehicles in GHMC limits with the involvement of state Energy department. In the next step, private players will be invited to offer electric charging services to the EVs across the state.

Officials said that availability of abundant power and strong transmission network in Telangana state will be an added advantage to encourage the EV manufacturing industries. "Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao is keen to enforce EV policy under TSiPASS industrial policy.

The CM is likely to hold a high-level meeting with energy, industry and other stakeholders to finalise the sops to EV industry under the new policy soon," revealed an official.