'Electric mobility to promote manufacturing, generate jobs'

New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said the government's electric mobility programme will promote manufacturing and job creation, besides reducing pollution.

Electric mobility is an attractive, sustainable and profitable solution to mitigate adverse impact of climate change and the threat to public health caused especially by vehicular emission, he said after induction of 15 electric vehicles for usage by officers of the Finance Ministry. The Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, has signed an agreement with Energy Efficiency Services Limited, an entity under the Ministry of Power, for deployment of 15 electric vehicles for their officers, an official statement said. At the same time, 28 charging points (24 slow charging points charging in six hours and four fast charging points charging in 90 minutes) have been installed at North Block for charging these vehicles.

With the induction of these 15 vehicles being provided on lease basis for a period of five years, DEA is expected to save over 36,000 litres of fuel every year besides leading to reduction of over 440 tonnes of CO2 annually, it said.