Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), the Central Government’s electric programme initiative has shrunk its electric vehicle order by 70 per cent. From its original goal of procuring 10,000 electric vehicles, EESL has now reduced the number to just 3,000. The company puts the blame on the Andhra Pradesh Government and its newly elected Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy for cancelling the orders placed by the previous Government under the Chandrababu Naidu administration. In March 2017, EESL had placed an order to 10,000 electric vehicles from Tata Motors and Mahindra Electric. The units were set to be procured by March 2019. However, the deadline was extended to March 2020 due to lack of demand and issues related to range.
At the moment, only 2,000 units of electric vehicles have been procured by EESL. Managing director, Saurabh Kumar told PTI that it has been decided that the current order will be closed by March 2020 at whatever the number of vehicles has been delivered by then.
He expects 1,000-odd units to come in by March. He said the largest order for these EVs came from Andhra when Chandrababu Naidu was the chief minister, but the Jagan Reddy government has stopped taking deliveries since
coming to power in May. Kumar said the bidding for 10,000 EVs in 2017 was done with a view that “we will be able to aggregate demand and the largest order came from Andhra. But the new government in the state has stopped taking deliveries. He also said EESL has not taken a decision on the next bidding as a lot of the existing and new players are looking to bring new models with different pricings.
“We will see. A lot of new launches are on the way, including from Tata Motors and Mahindra as well as from MG Motor. We will see what prices they offer. Accordingly, we will decide,” he said. Last month, EESL had placed 10 order from Hyundai Motor’s Kona electric SUVs of which four have already been delivered at a reported price of Rs 23.71 lakh.
Inputs: PTI
