By Girish Nagpal, CEO, MetroRide
"Adoption' is the single biggest prerequisite for the Electric Vehicles industry today. A PLI Scheme has been announced by the Centre but that only benefits certain big companies. While this was important, the major work in EVs is being done by the new-age startups and our MSMEs. MSMEs and startups need to be incentivised for using electric vehicles in their delivery or passenger fleet, building technology or HW around different aspects of EVs, charging Infra etc," he said.
"Further, financing to such organisations has always been a challenge in general, and with higher risks perceived with newer technologies, there is a huge dearth of debt options for smaller companies working in the EV sector. Hence, there is a prodigious need for this sector to be brought in under the gamut of Priority Lending. Moreover, we see the major adoption for EVs coming from B2B fleets and hence some major initiatives need to be rolled out for companies/fleets running with 100 per cent EVs. It can be by providing special grants, exemptions in GST & other taxes, or incentives for every green KM a fleet runs," he said.