Lauched in April 2015 with an aim to speed up the adoption of and eventual mainstreaming of electric vehicles (EVs) in India, the Scheme for Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid and) Electric Vehicles in India (FAME) has seen progressively larger allocations in the Union Budget since its launch.
A multi-phase scheme, Phase I of FAME ran for four years until 2019, with Phase II kicking off after that with an aim to support the electrification of both public and shared transport.
Under Phase II of the scheme, the government plans to subsidise around 7,000 electric and hybrid buses, 500,000 lakh electric three wheelers, 55,000 electric four wheeler passenger vehicles, and 1 million electric two wheelers, as per IEA.
The phased approach taken by the scheme is also reflected in the amounts allocated to it in Union Budgets over the years.
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In the year of its launch, FAME received a meagre allocation of Rs 75 crore, an amount that has since risen manifold.
In the immediate next year, the allocation was nearly doubled to Rs 144 crore, with the amount subsequently rising to Rs 165 crore in 2017-18.
2018-19 saw a dip in budgetary allocation for FAME, before the figure shot up to Rs 500 crore in 2019-2020.
2020-21, again, saw that amount dip to Rs 318 crore, perhaps a side effect of the then ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, before the allocation for the scheme rose sharply to Rs 800 crore in 2021-22.
As of 2022-23, the budgeted amount for FAME stood at a whopping Rs 2,908 crore, driven, in all probability, by both a boom in the EV sector in India and by global calls for quick adoption of EVs to tackle the brewing climate crisis.
If the trend holds, the 2023-24 Budget is also likely to see a large allocation to FAME, but the magnitude of the expected increase remains to be seen.