Senior officers of Uttarakhand government would soon be seen moving around in pollution free sedans powered by electricity. On Monday the keys of first such vehicle were handed over to the Chief Secretary Utpal Kumar Singh by the representative of Energy Efficient Services limited (EESl) which is a government of India enterprise.
The vehicle has been allotted to Finance secretary Amit Negi, who also took a test drive of the car.
The Chief Secretary said that emission of carbon dioxide would be lesser from these E-vehicles. He said these vehicles would be introduced in the state in a phased manner to check pollution and cut down the manufacturing costs. Singh informed that a fleet of twenty E- cars would be received from EESl in the first phase.
Secretary, Power, Radhika Jha said that EESl would charge a fare of Rs 38,000 per month and also provide driver for the vehicle.
She added that an amount of only Rs 15 per day would be spent to charge the vehicle for a day. The representative of the EESl, Ahtaysham Khan said that once charged the vehicle can be driven for 140 kilometres. He listed zero tailpipe emission and reduced noise pollution as some of the features of the vehicle.
The Union government has set up a target to introduce about 70,000 electricity powered vehicles by the year 2020 and for the purpose a national electric mobility plan has been initiated. The purpose of the plan to use electric vehicles instead of internal combustion engine vehicles is to reduce huge import bill of crude oil. The government wants to reduce carbon foot print by bringing down the emission of carbon dioxide by 5.6 lakh tonnes.