Chandigarh proposes quota increase for non-electric 2-wheelers by 1,600

Dushyant Singh Pundir

Chandigarh, October 17

Facing criticism from stakeholders, the UT Administration has proposed to increase registration of both two-wheelers and four-wheelers running on internal combustion engine (ICE) by nearly 10 per cent.

Four-wheelers

According to the proposal for four-wheelers, now, dealers can sell nearly 17,000 vehicles instead of 15,465, which was earlier fixed for the current financial year.

At a meeting held today under the chairmanship of UT Adviser Dharam Pal, it was proposed to increase the registration of petrol-based two-wheelers by 10 per cent and now, dealers can sell nearly 1,600 more non-electric two-wheelers till March 31 next year.

Similarly, for four-wheelers, now, dealers can sell nearly 17,000 vehicles instead of 15,465, which was earlier fixed for the current financial year.

It was also proposed to remove the cap on registration of compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles.

However, the proposed targets will be sent to UT Administrator Banwarilal Purohit for a final approval.

On October 6, the Administration had stopped the registration of two-wheelers running on ICE on hitting the target fixed for 2023-24 in the revised EV Policy.

According to the target, only 12,076 two-wheelers running on petrol had to be registered till March 31 next year. The target was achieved on October 6 and after that, the registration of such vehicles was stopped.

The administration had also stopped the registration of non-electric two-wheelers from February 10 to March 31 in the 2022-23 financial year.

According to the data available from September 20, 2022, till September 18 this year, a total of 19,592 non-electric two-wheelers were registered against 1,807 electric two-wheelers. Similarly, 26,372 non-electric four-wheelers were registered against 752 electric and 263 strong hybrid vehicles during the period.

With 10 dealers of two-wheelers, the city witnesses the sale of around 20,000 non-electric two-wheelers each year, approximately 1,600 sold monthly. The festive season alone witnesses the purchase of 4,000 vehicles, underscoring the importance of resolving the ongoing issue.

After backlash from dealers and residents, the UT Administration had revised its Electric Vehicle (EV) Policy in the first week of July and reduced the registration target for electric two-wheelers to 25 per cent to be achieved in 2023-24.

With regard to e-personal cars, the revised targets were slightly increased by 5% to 25% for 2023-24, as the double target of registration of 20% electric cars had been achieved for 2022-23, surpassing the original goal of 10%.

The Electric Vehicle (EV) Policy-2022 was rolled out in September 2022 to make Chandigarh a “Model EV City” by achieving one of the highest penetrations of zero-emission vehicles within the policy period of five years. The policy is aimed at mitigating the environmental impact caused by conventional vehicles and establish Chandigarh as a leading “Electric Vehicle City”

In order to encourage people to switch from conventional vehicles to electric vehicles and reduce their carbon footprint, various targets were set by the Administration, which were further reviewed by the officials today.