EV prices to tally with petrol vehicles' cost within a year: Nitin Gadkari

Union Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on 17 June said the prices of all electric vehicles (EVs) will be equal to the cost of petrol vehicles in the country within one year.

As an alternative to petrol and diesel, the government is promoting ethanol produced from crop residue, he added.

"I am trying...within one year, the cost of electric vehicles will be equivalent to the cost of petrol vehicles in the country and we will save money spent on fossil fuels," Gadkari said while addressing 'TV 9 What India Think Today Global Summit'.

Further, he added that the government is already promoting green fuels in a big way

The Minister noted waterways us a cheaper mode of transportation than road and it is going to come up in a big way.

Earlier, the Minister declared that he is planning to 'bring in a new law by which ₹500 will be given as reward to anyone who clicks and shares pictures of wrongly parked vehicles.

"If Rs 1,000 is the fine for a person guilty of the wrong parking, then Rs 500 from that amount will go to the person who clicks the picture," he said at an event called Industrial Decarbonization Summit 2022 at a hotel in Delhi.

Gadkari made the comments citing wrong parking becoming a huge menace ad number of cars is going up in urban India. "There are sometimes cars for each member of a family. But no one is building parking spaces. In Delhi, for instance, wide roads are being treated as parking spaces," the minister said

Post COVID-19 pandemic, car sales in India have seen a spike. Compared to the low numbers in the COVID-hit May of 2021, passenger vehicle dispatches to dealers in India rose over two-fold in May 2022