NEW DELHI, Sept 6 (Reuters) - India expects electric vehicles to make up 15 percent of all vehicles sales in five years, its transport minister said on Thursday, as the country tries to curb greenhouse gas emissions and dependency on fossil fuels. Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said India was working on measures to achieve its electric mobility target, adding that the proposal may not include incentives to stakeholders. India’s policy thinktank, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had announced in 2015 a 15-year roadmap to electrify all new vehicles by 2030, which many experts had called ambitious. The proposal included a plan to limit the registrations of petrol and diesel cars and incentivise sale of electric vehicles (EVs). Gadkari said on Thursday he does not see a need to subside electric vehicles (EVs) sold for personal use, but commercial EVs could be incentivised. India is one of the world’s fastest-growing car markets, but sale of EVs are negligible compared with millions of petrol and diesel cars sold every year. EVs are expensive due to the high cost of batteries which are still not manufactured in India, and carmakers say a lack of charging stations could make the whole proposition unviable. All EVs and alternate fuel cars would be exempted from taking permits, Gadkari said, a departure from the current practice which requires the owner to pay a substantial amount to secure permission to drive it. To enable local manufacturing, the ministry is also planning to exempt import duties on a limited number of vehicles if they are brought in for testing, he said. (Reporting by Aditi Shah and Sudarshan Varadhan; Writing by Promit Mukherjee; editing by David Evans)
India 's government is pushing for 15 % of new vehicle sales to be battery - electric models within five years . Subsidies for electric vehicles ( E ) sold for personal use are not anticipated , but incentives could be provided to boost sales of commercial vehicles , said Transport minister Nitin Gadkari . Owners would also be exempt from buying permits to drive EVs and alternate fuel cars . The high cost of imported batteries and a limited number of selling points have reportedly held back EV sales in India . An ambitious 15-year roadmap was announced in 2017 to electrify all new vehicles in India by 2030 .