Green number plates for ‘green vehicles’

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 9

The government will soon come out with a notification laying down rules for green vehicles, including different coloured number plates.

Road Transport and Highways Ministry officials said the notification for the same might be issued over the next few days, providing for green-coloured number plates with letters in white. Green taxis, on the other hand, would have green number plates with the registration number in yellow.

In an effort to promote green vehicles, the government is also looking at asking taxi aggregators to have an incremental share of electric vehicles (EVs) from 2020 onwards. The share would be 1 per cent of the fleet every year.

The ministry is also contemplating to engage with the Finance Ministry to have a depreciation rate on EVs 50 per cent as against the rate of 15 per cent for conventional vehicles, while also bringing down the GST on batteries to 12 per cent on a par with GST on EVs. The government has issued the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020 that aims at deployment of 6-7 million Electric Vehicles (EVs) on roads by 2020. It is expected that the total automotive sales in India would cross 5 million annually by 2020.

The mission covers all types of hybrid and electric technologies such as mild hybrid, strong hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles.

BIS marking must for helmets

New Delhi: The Centre has recommended bringing two-wheeler helmets under the mandatory Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification with “two wheeler” marking in word or picture on them, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Wednesday. The new helmets, to be designed on the recommendations of a committee, will be India-specific and at least 300 gm lighter. Spurious helmets put the safety of riders at risk as they are cheap and lightweight. Based on recommendations of trauma experts, it has been decided to do away with the penetration test, as no instances of injuries are observed with sharp edges. The ear protection part will be mandatory. PTI