The final guidelines for disbursing Rs 2,000 crore in incentives under the new PM E-DRIVE scheme to support the installation of public electric vehicle (EV) charging stations will be issued within a month, Hanif Qureshi, Additional Secretary at the Ministry of Heavy Industries, said Tuesday.
The ministry will also release detailed guidelines for implementing the scheme to boost domestic production of electric cars, which it had notified in March earlier this year to attract investments from global EV manufacturers, Qureshi said at a Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) event.
The PM Electric Drive Revolution in Innovative Vehicle Enhancement (PM E-DRIVE) scheme, which was notified in September with an outlay of Rs 10,900 crore over two years, sets aside Rs 2,000 crore for charging infrastructure, twice that of its predecessor the FAME-2 scheme.
Qureshi said the ministry has done a number of stakeholder consultations and framed draft guidelines on the disbursal of the total quantum of incentives. At the moment, the draft guidelines have been shared with state governments and the ministry is awaiting their feedback.
“Basically, there will be committees formed in each state at the level of the Chief Secretary where the demand for chargers in the state will be aggregated. Each state will also be sending a proposal to the Ministry of Heavy Industries, and then both will be sanctioned,” he said.
He added that incentives will be disbursed depending on parameters like the number of EVs in a city and the vehicular traffic that passes through the highways. “We will be prioritising on the basis of whether a state has an EV policy or not, whether they have some of their own incentives or not. Because we may receive proposals that are in excess of Rs 2,000 crore,” Qureshi said.
The final guidelines will also allocate incentives for upstream infrastructure that will be developed by electricity distribution companies (DISCOMs), as many of them are facing financial challenges.
Qureshi added that the detailed guidelines for the Scheme to Promote Manufacturing of Electric Passenger Cars in India (SPMEPCI), which was notified in March, will also be out within 3-4 weeks. The scheme essentially lowers import duties to 15 per cent from 100 per cent on car models costing over $35,000 if its manufacturer promises to invest $500 million in setting up a local factory.
According to the Ministry of Commerce, the scheme “is designed to attract investments in the e-vehicle space by reputed global EV manufacturers” and seeks to “provide Indian consumers with access to latest technology, boosting the Make in India initiative, strengthening the EV ecosystem by promoting healthy competition among EV players, reducing imports of crude oil and reduce air pollution”.