“As the EV Policy is not a part of the budget, we were not expecting any major announcement related to electric vehicles in today’s budget. However, we are happy to note that there are general announcements made today, which will support the cause. For example air pollution, higher excise duty for indigenization, increase in agriculture infrastructure spends as well as other announcements alike, which will directly and indirectly support the automobiles, especially two wheelers, hence giving a further boost to EVs. We all know that the new EV policy is in the advance phase of formulation and it will be a separate policy which will come after a few months. It is expected that the policy will be stable in the long term, which will shape up the future of the electric vehicles.
The only thing we were expecting from the budget was rationalization of GST rate i.e. currently 12% for EVs and 28% for EV batteries. Also, we had requested that GST should be made at least either 0 or 5% for initial years. But we didn’t find any mention of the same. Perhaps it will be covered in the policy, later. Overall we are happy with the outcome of the budget.”
