After inking an MoU with the Andhra Pradesh government earlier this month to supply 10,000 electric vehicles, state-run Energy Efficiency Services (EESL) is likely to sign MoUs with the governments of Gujarat and Maharashtra in the next one month. Under the aegis of the proposed MoUs, the company will supply 8,000 electric vehicles to Gujarat and 1,000 to Maharashtra.
Saurabh Kumar, managing director, EESL, said, “The demand for EVs has been growing. The total demand as it stands would be around 18,000 vehicles and growing.” Till date, three state governments have shown interest in electric cars. Kumar expects more state governments to sign on for rolling out the new technology. However, he had earlier said that no government has shown interest in electric buses and that the present interest is restricted to EV-powered cars.
The company had last year floated a tender for 10,000 electric vehicles to be used by government officials, mostly in the Delhi-NCR region. However, due to a high level of demand from other states EESL floated another tender of 10,000 vehicles this year.
So far, 500 EVs have been supplied under the first order of 10,000 units. The order was jointly won by Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) and Tata Motors. The procurement for the second phase of the remaining 9,500 units is yet to be started.
EESL, a joint venture of PSUs under the ministry of power, has also delayed its plans to go public. While it was to float its initial public offer in the present quarter, it has now delayed it to the last quarter of the fiscal year.
Kumar reasons that the delay was to make the offer more attractive as the company diversifies into new verticals and aims for faster growth in revenues. “To get a better valuation for our shareholders and promoters, we decided to defer the IPO by a few quarters,” said Kumar.