The government may ask 2- and 3-wheeler makers to pay up for causing vehicular pollution if they fail to meet the deadline to produce electric vehicles,
Livemint reported.
The move, the report said, comes after the manufacturers failed to meet the deadline to submit their plans to convert a part of their internal combustion engine (ICE)-driven two-wheelers and all three-wheelers into electric. The manufacturers have sought four months for the same.
The government is considering a policy proposal to ban all ICE-driven two-wheelers under 150cc by 2025, and three-wheelers by 2023. Nearly 80 percent of the vehicles sold in the country are two- or three-wheelers, the report said.
As part of this, the Niti Aayog had asked executives of two- and three-wheeler makers to make a plan ready for the next five years for EV transition, and submit it within two weeks. However, the deadline was not met prompting the government to move with a stricter action, as per the report.
In case the companies do not meet the deadline, the centre is considering to impose “polluter pays" — a principal under which the victim of pollution has to be compensated while the manufacturer also has to pay for the cost of environmental degradation, a senior government official said, as mentioned in the report.
