India on July 5, local time, proposed to provide tax breaks for electric car buyers and eliminate import tariffs on some electric car parts, in order to boost sales of electric cars and reduce dependence on fossil fuels, foreign media reported.
India, the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has 14 heavily polluted cities, including the capital, new Delhi.In 2017, more than 1 million people in India died from pollution and harmful gases.
Nirmala Sitharaman, finance minister, presented the federal budget to parliament, saying consumers buying electric cars would receive a 150,000 rupee (15,000 yuan) income tax cut to repay interest on their loans.
Sitharaman added that the government would also remove import tariffs on some electric car parts.”Given our large customer base, we aim to leapfrog the electric vehicle sector and make India a global hub for electric vehicle manufacturing.”
While India hopes to make electric cars 30 per cent of passenger vehicle sales by 2030, they currently account for less than 1 per cent of new car sales due to a lack of charging infrastructure and high battery costs.
Sitharaman said the government has proposed lowering the national goods and services tax (GST) from 12 percent to 5 percent, and plans to build large manufacturing plants to produce lithium batteries and solar charging infrastructure to encourage sales of electric cars.
According to foreign media reports, India will launch the bidding for the lithium ion battery project and plan to build a production capacity of 50GWh of lithium ion battery in India, which is a further improvement over the previous proposal of 40GWh.
A senior official at NITI Aayog, a government think-tank, told local media that the government would consider subsidies, tax cuts and other financial incentives within a week, including an eight-year tax cut on imports and exports for successful bidders and a halving of the minimum replacement tax.To ensure the timely establishment of the desired lithium-ion battery manufacturing base, it is expected that the government tender and project completion schedule will be very strict.
As part of a plan to reduce urban pollution, India’s finance minister also announced plans to shut down old, inefficient power plants and try to increase the use of natural gas power.Puneet Gupta, associate director of research at IHS Markit, said, “the Indian government is creating a complete ecosystem for electric mobile travel.”