The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Centre to revisit its 2020 electric vehicles policy and incorporate changes that have taken place over the past five years, as it sought its implementation from a metropolitan city.
A bench of justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi asked Attorney General R Venkataramani, appearing for the Centre, to look at the changes that have happened in five years and incorporate them in the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020 meant to promote and adoption of electric vehicles.
The Attorney General submitted that 13 ministries of the central Government are at present deliberating over the feasibility of the policy and soon a decision will be taken in this regard.
“The policy needs to be revisited as several changes took place over the years and could be implemented through a pilot project starting from a metropolitan city,” the bench said. It said that there are various aspects like incentives for adopting electric vehicles, Government institutions adopting these EV vehicles and availability of charging points, which need to be looked into.
Venkataramani said that the inter-ministerial group is looking at these aspects only and soon a decision will be taken. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), said it was a 2019 petition in which a direction has been sought to the Government to implement its 2020 policy on electric vehicles and create necessary infrastructure such as charging stations.
He said Niti Aayog and other bodies have suggested the Government for implementation of the National E-Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP), 2020.
The bench said that nowadays the electric vehicles are being readily adopted by people and very high-end models have entered into the market due to the demand. It gave the Centre time to come up with a roadmap on the implementation of the EV policy. The PIL has sought a direction to the Centre for faster adoption of electric vehicles to safeguard citizens’ fundamental rights to “breathe, health, and clean environment”.
On April 22, the Supreme Court expressed concern over job losses particularly of those in the automobile industry with the advent of artificial intelligence.
On February 19, 2020, the Supreme Court while hearing the PIL, had expressed a desire to interact with the transport minister Nitin Gadkari on the proposal for gradual conversion of all public transport and Government vehicles into electric vehicles to curb air pollution.
