Andhra Pradesh plans to attract an investment of Rs 30,000 crore and create 60,000 jobs in the electric vehicles (EVs) manufacturing sector, even as the state government laid out a plan to introduce 10 lakh EVs by 2024.
The state said it planned to develop a holistic research and development ecosystem, together with manufacturing units, to propel EV growth in AP.
The state government presented its plans on EVs at a high-level (virtual) meeting convened by Niti Aayog on Tuesday.
A Centre for Advanced Automotive Research, in collaboration with organisations like ISRO, IISER and IITs, to foster advance research in chemical, mechanical, electrical and electronics engineering will soon be set up to drive the new EV policy.
A Centre for Advancement of Smart Mobility has also been proposed in a 100-acre site (location yet to be identified) with a test track for all new EVs and autonomous vehicles.
All the 11,000-odd buses of the public sector AP State Road Transport Corporation will be converted into EVs by the year 2029.
AP Transport Principal Secretary M T Krishna Babu, Industries Director J V N Subrahmanyam and senior officials represented the state at the meeting attended by Niti Aayog CEO Amitab Kant, Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways Secretary A Giridhar and other top officials.
The state government told Niti Aayog that it planned to phase out fossil fuel-based vehicles in the top four cities (Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Tirupati and Guntur) by 2024 and all cities by 2030.
Plans were also afoot to install one lakh (EV) charging stations by 2024.
The New and Renewable Energy Development Corporation of AP has entered into a memorandum of understanding with NTPC and EESL for development of charging infrastructure across the state, the officials told Niti Aayog.
They requested that the Centre extend support in development of charging stations at prominent locations on National Highways.
They also sought financial support from the Centre for retrofitting EV kits to two and three-wheelers.
The AP government also sought the Centres financial support to set up swapping stations in the state.
A top official, who attended the meeting, said all government vehicles in the state would be converted to EV by 2024.
The state currently has a fleet of 9,001 battery electric vehicles (two-wheelers), 16,826 CNG and 971 BEV (three-wheelers), 8,208 BEV and 4,535 CNG (four-wheelers) and 313 CNG-run buses.
Via: PTI