For promoting electric vehicles in the city, more than INR 19 crore has been disbursed by the Chandigarh Renewal Energy and Science & Technology Promotion Society (CREST) as incentives since the launch of the Chandigarh EV Policy in Sept 2021.
Till June 30, incentives amounting to INR 19.31 crore have been released to 3,338 beneficiaries on purchase of electric vehicles. Of these, 2021 are the two-wheeler buyers, 153 are three-wheelers, 1,160 cars and 13 four-wheelers (goods).
The EV policy has the provision of incentivizing all electric vehicles such as e-bicycles, e-bikes, e-carts, e-autos, e-goods carrier (LSN and N1), e-cars (personal and commercial) (which is over and above FAME-I).
In addition to this, a special ‘early bird’ incentive was also given to vehicles, purchased and registered on or before March 31, 2023 in order to attract residents of Chandigarh to go in for EVs.
“As envisioned by the Prime Minister, the Chandigarh administration is also making sincere efforts to make UT carbon neutral. In this endeavour, Chandigarh administration notified electric vehicle policy on Sept 20, 2022 with the approval of the Punjab governor and UT administrator. Incentives have been disbursed in a timely manner to encourage growth of EVs in the city,” said Navneet Kumar Srivastava, chief executive officer, CREST.
A major component of the EV policy is the public EV charging station. The policy also envisaged installation of 100 public EV charging stations in the next five years. The administration cut the target to 30 for the policy tenure of five years. Nine have become operational, while work on another 16 is nearing completion. The installation has been plagued with delays because of several issues like delayed approvals and thefts.
Boost to EVs
A major impetus to the growth in the initial year of the policy was the upper sealing on the purchase of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles in the city. But after severe protests from different sections of the society, including businesses and political class, this sealing was dropped.
“But the growth in EVs continued in the past two-and-a-half years of the policy. The incentives have helped push people to opt for EVs. As the public EV charging stations infrastructure improves, more and more people will buy EVs,” said an official.
From a meagre 735 EVs purchased in 2021, the number of EVs registered in the city increased to 6,408 in 2023. Till Aug 5 this year, around 3,580 EVs have been registered in the city.
The major share of EV growth has been witnessed in two-wheelers and e-rickshaw segments. In 2021, only 124 e-scooters/motorcycle were registered in the city. By the end of 2023, this number increased to 2144.
