Tirupati to get e-vehicle testing facilities, tracks

Tirupati: In a bid to boost electric vehicles, it was proposed to set up an Automotive Homologation and R&D centre in AP with an investment of Rs 250 crore. Following a proposal from the New and Renewable Energy Development Corporation of Andhra Pradesh Ltd (NREDCAP), the State government has come forward to allocate the land for this in Tirupati.

Explaining the details to The Hans India, NREDCAP Vice-Chairman and Managing Director S Ramana Reddy said that at this centre testing facilities for vehicles and components will come up along with intelligence testing tracks for driver-less vehicles.

With this, entrepreneurs were expected to come up to employ updated technology, he said and added these works would be started soon after identifying the land in one or two months. This project was expected to generate 200-250 direct jobs and 1,000 indirect jobs, he stated.

Further, as part of the department of Heavy Industry, Government of India's (GoI) initiative towards adopting electric vehicles fast, NREDCAP has been working in setting up EV charging infrastructure at various locations, he added.

Towards creating a conducive ecosystem, the GoI has proposed to set up the infrastructure in metropolitan cities and in 10 lakh plus population cities. But, in the changing scenario, NREDCAP has identified some core cities – Tirupati, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam and Kakinada and GoI approved the proposal.

Accordingly, NREDCAP identified 83 locations in these four cities in the state to set up charging stations for which they tied up with NTPC and Rajasthan Electronics and Instruments Ltd (REIL). In Tirupati, 10 locations belonging to APSPDCL and TUDA were identified. All these charging stations may be set-up in the next 2-3 months.

NREDCAP has also purchased 300 electric cars and given to different departments on lease rental basis. Concerned departments have to employ drivers to use the cars and pay a rent of Rs 16,000 per month. Departments like SPDCL and CPDCL are using these vehicles. To a question, he said the Government of India has been giving subsidy for e-vehicles under FAME-II scheme.

However, there was a demand from some quarters for the subsidies to allow conversion of old vehicles into hybrid electric vehicles through retrofitting. There are around one crore vehicles in AP alone of which about 64 lakh two-wheelers are there. As all of them can't be changed overnight, the government should encourage retrofitting gradually so that existing vehicle owners may come forward and contribute their might in reducing carbon emission.