Government lowers import duty on components for electric vehicles. Where does ‘Make in India’ stand amidst this?

Abhijeet Gupta, Group Director, Radite Energy Infra Solutions Pvt Ltd

Electric Vehicle (EV) is the future of Indian mobility business. To reduce the dependency of crude oil, import and save the environment for future, EV is a must for the country. Presently, most of the components be it for EV or for charging stations are been imported. Thus, there was a great need to lower the import duty on the components for EV, which will in turn lower the price of the EV and make it more affordable for the consumers. This will help the consumers to adopt EV for the daily use. Increase in use of EV will boost the industry and make it one of the fastest growing industries, which will give a great opportunity for many companies and in turn will increase employment.

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The high cost of electric vehicles is a major hindrance for EV adoption. In order to boost ecosystem for EV, government has cut import duties on components for EV to 10 to 15 per cent from 15 to 30 per cent. This will reduce the cost of EV and cost of assembling them in India, thereby increasing their sales. The increase in demand for EV will provide an impetus for EV assembling industry within the country. The ‘Make in India’ initiative will also be benefited as there are very few EV assemblers in India. It will help set up market for EV and assistin setting up EV component manufacturing in long term. Also, this will help the auto sector giants to put up assembly plants for their EVs. EV also generates demand for batteries and will boost its manufacturing in India as well. Thus, the cut in import duty will assist ‘Make in India’ initiative and can be revoked when manufacturing builds up in India.