new delhi the union ministry of heavy industries mhi has suggested doing away with gst road tax and parking fee for electric vehicles and sought an allocation of rs 1200013000 crore to strengthen the thrust on developing green vehicles the ministry made the pitch before cabinet secretary pk sinha and other government agencies earlier this week the demand for zerorate gst as opposed to the proposed 12 on electric vehicles came days before the meeting of the gst council comprising union and state finance ministers scheduled for sunday revision of the rates for some goods is already on the agenda for the meeting however the demand so far was to either reduce the duty on hybrids or increase the levy on suvs which will face 43 gst at the same time sources told toi the mhi has made a strong pitch for indigenisation and said that no tax concessions should be offered for imported electric vehicles in order to encourage the development of technologies suitable for the country t he demand for enhanced budget support follows a low allocation from the government for the first phase of the electric vehicle project originally the scheme to push electric and hybrid vehicles named fame envisaged a budgetary support of rs 14000 crore for five years till 2020 the estimate finance committee had approved rs 795 crore for a twoyear pilot project but only rs 219 crore has been allotted in two years moreover a good share of this fund has been used up as subsidy for the mild hybrid fourwheelers which come with a startstop switch but enjoy the same benefits as genuine hybrids in fact the auto industry has been critical of maruti suzuki and mahindras offerings several of which are mild hybrids of the 122 lakh vehicles which received support over 81000 were mild hybrids official numbers show that fully electric twowheelers or ebikes were the secondhighest chunk with 37820 such vehicles receiving government allocation there has been little progress in deploying other electric vehicles although there are ambitious plans to run a fleet of electric buses until and unless we have availability of cheaper battery things are not going to change fast if we end up depending on china for batteries then it does not serve the purpose we have to have indigenous technology and mass production of battery to bring down prices said a government official the heavy industry department has suggested that the government allow using corporate social responsibility csr funds to support electric mobility spac e research organisation isro which has developed lithium ion battery technology has also agreed to share the technology with private players for mass production by dipak k dash tnn published on jun 12 2017 at 0440 pm ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit button this will alert our