The Indian government is looking at different ways to promote the adoption of electric vehicles in the country. After taking measures to make electric vehicles cheaper, the government is now looking at ways to discourage purchase of new petrol and diesel vehicles while phasing old the use of old ones.

In its draft notification, issued this week, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has proposed a hike in registration fees of most categories of vehicles running on fuel. New registration of a motor cycle is proposed to be increased to Rs 1,000 (from Rs 50) while renewal of registration is proposed to become Rs 2,000. Similarly, new registration of light motor vehicles can cost Rs 10,000, while renewal is proposed to be Rs 20,000, from the earlier charge of Rs 1,000.

Further, the ministry has also proposed ways to promote scrapping of older models. The draft has proposed exemption on registration fee for buyers who scrap older ones.

"The newly purchased Motor Vehicles of the categories .....shall be exempted for the payment of fees for the purpose of issue of registration certificate and assignment of new registration mark subject to condition that motor vehicle is presented for the registration along with the scrapping certificate of the previously owned vehicle of same category issued by the authorised scrapping centre/agency and the scrapping certificate not utilised for any other such cases in past," it said.

The ministry has also proposed to cut the period for renewal of certificate of fitness by half for very old vehicles. The fitness certificates for vehicles older than 15 years have been proposed to be renewed every 6 months instead of the earlier one year period. The fee for renewal of these certificates are also proposed to be increased.

If the draft becomes a law, vehicles up to eight years old will have to renew their fitness certificate every 2 years while those older than eight years but less than 15 years will need to get it renewed once a year.

The proposal made in the draft are clearly aimed to encourage scrapping old vehicles and also increase the adoption of electric vehicles to curb the country's prevailing pollution crisis that has hampered the air quality, especially in metro cities. The move is also in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.