PM to launch mission plan for electric cars soon

The National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020 will be launched by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the "next few weeks", Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Praful Patel said on Monday.

"We have an ambitious electric vehicle mobility plan. In the next few weeks, the Prime Minister will officially launch it," Patel said at the diesel technology summit by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers here.

The minister's statement comes after months of delay of the Mission Plan, which was originally proposed to be launched by July 2012. The mission aims at promoting electric and hybrid vehicles.

At present, India's production of hybrid or electric vehicles is almost negligible.

The government had decided to set up the National Council for Electric Mobility (NCEM) and National Board for Electrical Mobility (NBEM) under the Chairmanship of the Minister.

The first meeting of the NCEM, which covers two-wheelers, four-wheelers and commercial vehicles, was held in August that approved the way forward.

The NCEM had adopted the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020 (NEMMP 2020), which is the mission document for National Mission for Electric Mobility.

Last year, the Cabinet had cleared the National Mission for Electric Mobility.

The Plan lays the vision, sets the targets and provides the roadmap for achieving significant penetration of efficient and eco-friendly electric vehicle (including hybrids) technologies in India by 2020.

According to industry, the government will save Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion) in fuel by giving Rs 14,000 crore in subsidy to industry for manufacturing electric vehicles. The industry contribution would be about Rs 8,000 crore (Rs 80 billion).

India has set a target to produce six million green vehicles by 2020, of which 4-5 million are expected to be two-wheelers. At present, there are only about 1,500 electric four-wheelers and about 400,000 electric two-wheelers.