Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday presented the union budget for the fiscal year 2022-23. She announced some measures to boost the Indian auto industry. 

The FM proposed a new battery swap policy to encourage electric vehicle adoption. 

“Considering the constraint space in urban areas for setting up (electric vehicles) charging stations, a battery swapping policy will be brought out and interoperability standards will be formulated,” Sitharaman said. 

She further added that the private sector will be encouraged to set up sustainable business models for battery or energy service and this will improve efficiency in EV (electric vehicle) ecosystem.

“We will promote a shift to use public transport in urban areas. This will be complemented by clean tech and governance solutions, special mobility zones with zero fossil fuel policy and EV vehicles,” she stated.

The policy will facilitate faster rollout of battery swapping centres where EV owners would be able to refuel their EV by replacing exhausted batteries with charged ones.

Sameer Aggarwal, CEO and Founder, EV financing company RevFin said the policy will help in the wide-scale adoption of batteries as a service, reducing upfront ownership costs of electric vehicles.

No new incentives for electric vehicle adoption, tax cut and revised duty structure were announced, which means vars, bikes, scooters won’t get cheaper.