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Aiming to popularise electric vehicles, the government has exempted battery-operated vehicles (BOVs) from paying the fees for issue or renewal of registration certificate (RC).

A statement issued by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) also said the fee exemption is offered to encourage e-mobility across the country.

The draft notification

The MoRTH issued a draft notification on  May 21 proposing an exemption to BOVs from charges pertaining to issuing and renewing RCs. It had also sought comments and feedback from the general public and other stakeholders but received no objection to the draft rules. Subsequently, it issued the statement.

“Now, therefore, in the exercise of the powers conferred by section 64 and section 211 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (59 of 1988), the Central Government hereby makes the following rules further to amend the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989,” the statement by (MoRTH) said.

The new rule may be termed the Central Motor Vehicles (Sixteenth Amendment) Rules, 2021 and will be effective when published in the official gazette

 EV policies of states

In October last year, Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot had announced that under Delhi’s electric vehicle policy, BOVs don’t need to shell out any fee for registration.

As of now, e-vehicles only account for a mere 1.3% of the total vehicles that are sold in the country. Several states have adopted EV policies in order to popularise the purchases of such vehicles and also offer incentives to people who buy such vehicles. In addition to Delhi, some of the states that have an EV policy in place are Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Karnataka, and Telangana.