 "Andhra Pradesh plans tax sops to boost use of electric vehicles")
Andhra Pradesh government is planning to remove all types of taxes on electric vehicles that run on rechargeable batteries.
Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said promoting use of electric vehicles was an important move to reduce vehicular pollution. This initiative was particularly relevant for his state, which is a power surplus state, as use of electric vehicles may increase the power demand to some extent.
The government has drawn up plans to sell 1,000 MW of surplus power to other states in the new financial year. Yet, on Sunday, the government has signed MoUs for an additional capacity of 21,000 MW worth of over Rs 1.7 lakh crore in the energy sector with wind and coal fired power forming 80% of these investment intents.
Responding to a question, the chief minister said the power demand in the state would go up in future as the demand from manufacturing and other sectors was set to go up.
On Sunday, 32 MoUs with an investment of Rs 1.95 crore were signed on the opening day at the CII Partnership Summit. Among these, Reliance ADAG Group’s Naval Ship Building Facility with an initial investment of Rs 5,000 crore, an automotive park and a defence and aerospace park proposed to be set up by Bhart Forge Limited with a combined investment of Rs 2,700 crore were in manufacturing sector, while the remaining MoUs were from the energy sector.
According to the chief minister the government was expected to sign 49 MoUs in IT sector on the second day of the event besides a large number of investment intents to be signed in manufacturing sector.