Delhi continues to be one of the vehicle markets in India with highest density of electric vehicles. On Tuesday, the state government said that the national capital clocked record sale of electric vehicles in December. The city saw nearly one fifth of the overall vehicles sold last month were EVs. This is the highest ever sale of electric vehicles recorded in any state across India, according to the state government which claims Delhi is the EV capital of the country.
Kailash Gahlot, Transport Minister of Delhi, took to social media to announce the major landmark. “Overall in 2023, Delhi registered a total of 6,57,312 vehicles out of which 73,610 were Electric,” Gahlot said on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday. He also said that March was the second-best month last year in terms of EV sales which contributed about 14.7 per cent of the total sales. May was the third best month when EVs contributed 14.4 per cent of overall sales.
The Delhi government recently extended its own EV Policy by three months. It was earlier scheduled to expire on December 31 last year. The existing policy will continue to remain in place till the end of the ongoing financial year. A new, and more comprehensive, electric vehicle policy has already been proposed by the state government which is expected to replace the existing one.
Delhi launched its own Electric Vehicle Policy back in 2020. The new policy, which will be called Delhi EV Policy 2.0, will be a more comprehensive version of the existing one and is aimed to encourage people more to shift to electric mobility. “All incentives including subsidy under the existing policy shall continue. Delhi EV policy 2.0 is in the final stages and after necessary approvals shall be notified soon,” said Gahlot.
Besides other incentives, the new EV policy will also aim to reward when someone decides to retrofit old vehicles into EVs. However, the process is expensive and government incentives would make this affordable for interested vehicle owners who seek to convert their fossil fuel vehicles into EVs. The policy is aimed to increase the contribution of EVs to 25 per cent of all new vehicle registrations in Delhi by end of this year.
Delhi is often under the grip of high level of pollution. This has led to ban on plying of BS3 petrol and BS4 diesel vehicles twice within two months last year. Increased share of electric vehicles in the city could help the air quality index (AQI) ease in future. The state already has a large fleet of electric buses and commercial vehicles which also contribute to zero-emission public transport.