West Bengal Electric Vehicle Policy 2021

The Power Department of the Government of West Bengal has announced the Electric Vehicle Policy 2021 which aims to make the state a sustainable transportation infrastructure hub. The policy will be applicable for 5 years from the date of notification in the official gazette.

The government aims to promote electric mobility in the state and with the new policy it plans to have one million EVs combined across all segments. It is also planning to develop 100,000 charging stations.

India’s sixth-largest state in terms of economic size, with a gross state domestic product (GSDP) of 10 trillion rupees in 2017-18 with a growth rate from 2011-12 to 2018-19 of about 12.06%. The policy of West Bengal aims to be among the top 3 states in India for the adoption of electric vehicles with the help of Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME)-II implementation year 2022.

The FAME phase II will be implemented for 3 years that is from 1st April 2019 with an overall outlay of 10,000 crores. The Department of Heavy Industry (DHI) is responsible for the implementation, planning and review of the scheme. It will also issue the guidelines to fulfil the objectives of the scheme.

The objective of this policy

• To promote innovation activities through grants and venture funds to the research organisation, incubators and start-ups working on next-generation battery technology, fuel cell technologies, EV power trains and EV electronics.
• Enable investment into charging/battery swapping infrastructure and hydrogen generation and fueling station development.
• To promote usage of EVs to enable the transition to environmentally friendly cities.
• It targets to have 1,00,000 public, semi-public charging stations during the policy implementation.
• Target is to have 10 lakh electric vehicles across all segment
• To achieve an electric vehicle/public charge point ratio of 8 by the implementation of the policy.
• Creating robust infrastructure for electric vehicles which includes adequate power supply and network of charging points with favourable power tariff.
• Recycle and reuse the used batteries and dispose of the rejected batteries in an environmentally friendly manner to avoid pollution.

EV Accelerator Cell 

EV accelerator cell shall facilitate ICE vehicles phasing out plan in all segments including 2Ws, 3Ws, 4Ws passenger cars and vans and buses for which the State EV Fund will be utilised. Setting up EV forum and setting up EV charging infrastructure.

State-level EV awareness

State-level EV awareness campaigns and intensive public outreach programmes will be formulated. A dedicated EV awareness web portal and mobile app with state-level charge points registry and journey planner may be developed.

Charging infrastructure

The state’s transition strategy will include setting up swapping stations in the form of kiosks to service two-wheelers and three-wheelers. Existing private buildings such as malls and other commercial spaces will be incentivized to set up charging and battery swapping stations.

DISCOM shall release supply to charging/battery swapping stations within 48 hours of application. The Charge operators will be invited to set up EV charging facilities and battery swapping stations all over the state in multiple phases through concessional locations for charging stations.

Tariff for EV charging can be around rupees 6 kWh per unit single part tariff so as to keep the end-user service charge from those public charging stations attractive EV owners.

Energy sale

The new policy states that a promotional single part tariff will govern the public charging high tension (HT) and low tension (LT) points capped at ₹6/kVAh for the next two years.

The third-party EV charging infrastructure providers will be allowed to procure power from DISCOMs at a tariff determined by the regulator and will be allowed to provide the charging service to EVs. 

Hydrogen generation

The government will develop the first few hydrogen generations and refuelling stations. Private developers will also be allowed to set up hydrogen stations.

Electric mobility cities

The cities such as Kolkata, Asansol, Darjeeling and Howrah will be declared as model EM cities with phase wise goals to adopt EVs, charging and hydrogen refuelling infrastructure and new EV enabling building codes.

New Town in Kolkata will be the epicentre of pilot projects for all new initiatives in this regard.

Also, read related article: 10 Indian States & Union Territories EV policies & their objectives

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