Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Steel H.D. Kumaraswamy during the launch of the guidelines and portals for electric trucks under the PM E-DRIVE scheme, in New Delhi on Friday.
The Centre on Friday unveiled a scheme to provide financial incentives for purchase of electric trucks under the PM E-Drive initiative, where a sum of ₹500 crore has been set aside for 5,600 electric trucks. Of this financial outlay, a fifth is dedicated for vehicles registered in Delhi.
The sum of ₹500 crore is within the total outlay of ₹10,500 crore for the PM E-drive scheme, which came into effect in October 2024 for a period of two years to support the shift to electric mobility in the country.
The scheme for e-trucks offers a maximum incentive set at ₹9.6 lakh per vehicle. The incentive will depend on the gross vehicle weight of the electric truck and will cover those above 3.5 tonnes and up to 12 tonnes of weight (N2 category), and trucks weighing between 12 tonnes and up to 55 tonnes.
These incentives will be offered as an upfront reduction in the purchase price and reimbursed to OEMs via the PM E-DRIVE portal on a first-come, first-serve basis, a the Ministry of Heavy Industries said in a press statement.
To receive the incentive, the manufacturer will have to provide warranties for battery for a period of five years or 5 lakh kilometres, and for the vehicle and motor for a period of five years and 2.5 lakh kilometres.
To qualify for the incentives, the scrapping of old, polluting trucks is also mandatory.
A dedicated provision for 1,100 e-trucks registered in Delhi has also been made at an estimated cost of ₹100 crore within this scheme in order to address the capital’s air quality challenges.
“Diesel trucks, though constitute only 3% of the total vehicle population, contribute to 42% of transport-related greenhouse gas emissions and significantly worsen air pollution. This pioneering scheme, represents India’s first dedicated support for electric trucks,” said Minister for Heavy Industries H.D. Kumaraswamy.
“The FAME scheme did not have any component on electric trucks and this scheme is the first time that the government is launching a customer-facing electric truck scheme in which we are directly encouraging the customers to purchase electric trucks by providing them a reasonable subsidy, so that this movement can be driven from demand side as well as supply side,” said Secretary in the Heavy Industries Ministry Kamran Rizvi.
Friday’s announcement is within the framework of the PM E Drive scheme approved by the Cabinet in September last year. The scheme for promotion of electric mobility in the country has an outlay of ₹10,900 crore over a period of two years. It lays down subsidies or demand incentives worth ₹3,679 crore for electric two-wheelers, three-wheelers, ambulances, e-trucks and other emerging EVs.
The scheme supports 24.79 lakh e-2Ws, 3.16 lakh e-3Ws, and 14,028 e-buses. The government has already extended support for 1.6 lakh three wheelers, 12 lakh two wheelers and 10,400 buses, which include 4,500 buses for Bengaluru, 2,800 buses for Delhi, 2,000 buses for Hyderabad, 1,000 buses for Ahmedabad and 600 for Surat. The Ministry will announce the scheme for e-ambulances by December 2025 or January 2026.
(With PTI inputs)
Published – July 11, 2025 09:11 pm IST