Bengal waives off registration fee, motor vehicle & addl taxes for electric, CNG vehicles

Kolkata: The Bengal government on Friday announced that they are waiving off registration fees, motor vehicle and additional taxes for two and four-wheeled electric vehicles and all categories of CNG-operated vehicles.

This will be applicable for vehicles registered from April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2024.

This will decrease the road prices of several categories of green energy-operated vehicles. A notification in this regard has been issued by the state Transport department on Friday.

The order signed by Transport department Secretary Rajesh Sinha, mentioned: "It is felt necessary to give some kind of financial relief/exemption to incentivise investment in battery-operated electric vehicles and also to incentivise reduction in carbon footprint and to reduce dependence on petrol/diesel".

The state Transport department will deploy 1,000 e-buses by 2023. Already, CNG buses run by private operators have been deployed and are running between Sapoorji in New Town to Ultadanga. State Transport minister Firhad Hakim had inaugurated CNG operated buses to be used by private players on Wednesday.

E-bikes manufactured by Hindustan Motors are likely to hit the market within this financial year.

To encourage people to use e-vehicles, a carnival was held in New Town in 2021. E-vehicle manufacturers met the people and answered their questions. New Town is the first township in Bengal where e-buses were introduced three years ago. Now, three more buses have been introduced taking the total number of the fleet to six.

The state Chief Secretary along with several other additional Chief Secretaries and ministers are using electric vehicles. Hakim said the prime work now is to bring down the level of carbon emission by 2030.