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GS Paper: GS3-18.Conservation, Environmental Pollution and Degradation, Environmental Impact Assessment.

  • [pib] Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Transport Initiative for Asia (TIA)

    NITI Aayog will virtually launch the India Component of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC)–Transport Initiative for Asia (TIA).

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.The term Intended Nationally Determined Contribution is sometimes seen in the news in the context of:

    (a) Pledge made by the European countries to rehabilitate refuges from the war-affected Middle East.

    (b) Plan of nation outlined by the countries of the world to combat climate changes.

    (c) Capital contributed by the member countries in the establishment of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

    (d) Plain of action outlined by the countries of the regarding SDGs.

    What is NDC-TIA?

    • It is a joint programme, supported by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU).
    • On behalf of the GoI, NITI Aayog will be the implementing partner.
    • It aims to promote a comprehensive approach to decarbonize transport in India, Vietnam, and China.
    • It is implemented by a consortium of seven other organisations.

    Working

    • The programme has a duration of 4 years.
    • The India Component will focus on establishing a multi-stakeholder dialogue platform for decarbonizing transport in India, strengthening GHG and transport modelling capacities.
    • It would help in financing climate actions in transport, offering policy recommendations on electric vehicle (EV) demand and supply policies.

    Why need TIA?

    • India has a massive and diverse transport sector that caters to the needs of billion people.
    • It has the world’s second-largest road network, which contributes to maximum GHG emissions through all means of transportation.
    • With increasing urbanisation, the fleet size i.e. the number of sales of vehicles is increasing rapidly.
    • It is projected that the total number of vehicles will be doubled by 2030.

  • BIS’ draft standard for drinking water supply

    The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has prepared a draft standard for the supply system of piped drinking water.

    Try this question for mains:

    Q.Climate change, scarcity, population growth, demographic changes and urbanization pose challenges for water supply systems in India. Analyse.

    About the Draft

    • Labelled ‘Drinking water supply quality management system — requirements for piped drinking water supply service’, the draft has been prepared by the BIS’ Public Drinking Water Supply Services Sectional Committee.
    • It outlines the process of water supply, from raw water sources to household taps.
    • It has been developed keeping in view the Centre’s Jal Jeevan Mission for providing safe and adequate drinking water to all rural households by 2024 through tap connections.
    • It is expected to make the process of piped water supply more uniform, especially in rural and underdeveloped areas of the country where the system runs on various government orders and circulars.
    • At present, the standard is expected not to be made mandatory.

    Highlights of the draft

    • The draft outlines the requirements for a water supplier or a water utility on how they should establish, operate, maintain and improve their piped drinking water supply service.
    • The process begins with the identification of a water source, which can either be groundwater or surface water sources such as rivers, streams or reservoirs.
    • It doesn’t mention how water utilities should treat the water, but states that the process should be planned in such a manner that after treatment it should conform to the Indian Standard (IS) 10500 developed by the BIS.
    • The IS 10500 outlines the acceptable limits of heavy metals such as arsenic, and other parameters like the pH value of water, its turbidity, the total dissolved solids in it, and the colour and odour.

    What is the water supply process?

    • The supply system as outlined in the draft should begin with the identification of a raw water source.
    • Water should then be pumped into the treatment plant and treated to achieve acceptable drinking standards.
    • After the water is released from the plant, there should be reservoirs in the distribution system for storage of this water, and disinfection facilities to get rid of contamination at any stage of distribution.
    • Pumping stations or boosters, if necessary, should be provided to maintain adequate pressure throughout the distribution system.

    District Metering Area (DMA) concept

    • The document also states that the concept of district metering area (DMA) should be adopted where possible.
    • DMA is a concept for controlling leakages in the water network, which is essentially divided into a number of sectors, called the DMAs, and where flow meters are installed to detect leaks.
    • The water supplier/utility may provide bulk water meters in the water distribution system to ensure water audit, however, the provisions should be made for domestic meters also.

    What’s there in the draft in addition to the water supply process?

    • There are guidelines on water audit, which is a calculation of the amount of water put into distribution against the amount that is consumed.
    • The draft states that a water audit should be conducted on a quarterly basis.
    • Effort should be made by the water agency to bring down the water loss up to 15% of the total water supplied in the system.
    • The water utilities are also required to conduct surveys among consumers and obtain feedback on their service as per the draft.
    • Guidelines on internal audit, management review, documenting performance indicators for improvement, and timely action against non-conformity issues also find mention.

  • Gorumara National Park

    A bison (Indian Gaur) was allegedly poached in Gorumara National Park.

    Try this PYQ:

    Which one of the following National Parks lies completely in the temperate alpine zone?(CSP 2019)

    (a) Manas National Park

    (b) Namdapha National Park

    (c) Neora Valley National Park

    (d) Valley of Flowers National Park

    Gorumara NP

    • It is located in the Eastern Himalayas’ submontane Terai belt.
    • This region has rolling forests and riverine grasslands, and is known as the Dooars in West Bengal.
    • The park is located on the flood plains of the Murti River and Raidak River. The major river of the park is the Jaldhaka river, a tributary of the Brahmaputra river system.
    • In this regard, Gorumara is a significant watershed area between the Ganges and Brahmaputra river systems.
    • The park is rich in large herbivores including Indian rhinoceros, gaur, Asian elephant, sloth bear, chital, and sambar deer. Small herbivores include barking deer, hog deer and wild boar.

    About Gaur

    • The Gaur called the Indian bison, is native to South and Southeast Asia and has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1986.
    • It is the largest species among the wild cattle.
    • The domesticated form of the gaur is called gayal (Bos frontalis) or mithun.

  • Micro-plastic Pollution in Atlantic Ocean

    The Atlantic Ocean contains 12-21 million tonnes of microplastics — about 10 times higher than previously determined — according to new research published in Nature Communications.

    Highlights of the report

    • In the study, scientists studied pollution of the Atlantic Ocean caused by three types of plastics: polyethylene, polypropylene, and polystyrene, which were suspended in the top 200 metres of the ocean.
    • These three types of plastic are most commonly used for packaging.
    • Scientists say that pollution caused by microplastics has been “severely” underestimated in previous assessments.
    • They also estimate that based on plastic waste generation trends from 1950-2015 and considering that the Atlantic Ocean has received 0.3-0.8 per cent of the global plastic waste for 65 years.
    • To date, a key uncertainty has been the magnitude of contamination of the ocean and our findings demonstrate that this is much higher in terms of mass than has been estimated previously.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. Why is there a great concern about the ‘microbeads’ that are released into the environment? (CSP 2019)

    (a) They are considered harmful to marine ecosystems.

    (b) They are considered to cause skin cancer in children.

    (c) They are small enough to be absorbed by crop plants in irrigated fields.

    (d) They are often found to be used as food adulterants.

    What are Microplastics?

    • Microplastics are plastic debris smaller than 5mm in length, or about the size of a sesame seed.
    • While they come from a variety of sources, one of them is when larger pieces of plastic degrade into smaller pieces, which are difficult to detect.

    How does plastic reach the oceans?

    • There are multiple pathways for them to reach the oceans.
    • For instance, riverine and atmospheric transport from coastal and inland areas, illegal dumping activities and direct-at-sea littering from shipping, fishing and aquaculture activities, scientists have said.
    • According to the IUCN, at least 8 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans every year and makes up about 80 per cent of all marine debris from surface waters to deep-sea sediments.

    Why is plastic pollution especially harmful?

    • Plastic can take hundreds to thousands of years to decompose depending on the type of plastic and where it has been dumped.
    • Some marine species such as zooplanktons show preferential ingestion of smaller particles, making them easier to enter the food chain and their conversion to fast-sinking faecal pellets.
    • Over the past few years, various news reports have shown that marine animals such as whales, seabirds and turtles unknowingly ingest plastic and often suffocate to death.
    • While all sorts of marine species are prone to get impacted by plastic pollution, typically, bigger marine species tend to get more attention because of the amounts of debris they can hold up.

    Impact on humans

    • For humans, too, marine plastic pollution is harmful if it reaches the food chain. For instance, microplastics have been found in tap water, beer and even salt.
    • One of the first studies to estimate plastic pollution in human ingestion that was published in June 2019 said that an average person eats at least 50,000 particles of microplastic each year.
    • Consumption of plastic by humans is harmful since several chemicals that are used to produce plastics can be carcinogenic.
    • Even so, since microplastics are an emerging field of study, its exact risks on the environment and human health are not clearly known.

  • Myth of the pristine forest

    • The COVID-19 pandemic has driven migrant workers back to their villages, including many situated inside or on the fringes of forested areas, including sanctuaries and national parks.
    • Even as they seek to remake livelihoods there, a new battle has emerged between the forest department (FD) and these local communities.
    • It pertains to the declaration of a Critical Wildlife Habitat (CWH), which a PIL in the Bombay High Court seeks to get the department to urgently notify.

    Try this question for mains:

    Forest dwellers are integral to the very survival and sustainability of the forest ecosystem. Analyse.

    What is Critical Wildlife Habitat (CHW)?

    • CWH is a provision under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 (FRA).
    • The Act primarily focuses on recognising the historically-denied rights of forest-dwellers to use and manage forests.
    • The CWH provision, however, is an attempt to assuage concerns of wildlife conservationists.
    • It allows for the possibility that in protected areas (PAs) — wildlife sanctuaries and national parks — these rights could be attenuated, and, if absolutely necessary, forest-dwellers could be relocated in the interest of wildlife conservation.

    Forest dwellers vs. Wildlife

    • Conservationists believe that wildlife needs absolutely “inviolate” areas — those devoid of humans and human activities.
    • Many others believe human-wildlife co-existence is generally possible and must be promoted if we are to have “socially just conservation”.

    Achieving balanced conservation: The FRA provisions

    • A careful reading of the CWH provisions in the FRA shows that it is open to both possibilities, as long as they are arrived at through a rigorous and participatory process.
    • It requires setting up a multi-disciplinary expert committee, including representatives from local communities.
    • It also requires determining — using “scientific and objective criteria” and consultative processes — whether, and wherein the PA, the exercise of forest rights will cause irreversible damages.
    • It then requires determining whether coexistence is possible through a modified set of rights or management practices.
    • Only if the multi-stakeholder expert committee agrees that co-existence or other reasonable options are not possible, should relocation be taken up, again with the informed consent of the concerned gram sabhas.
    • For any such process to commence, the Act requires that all forest rights under the FRA must first be recognised.

    Issues with the FRA

    (1) Concerns of eviction

    • Hardline conservationists took FRA as a great opportunity to complete its agenda of evicting forest-dwellers from PAs.
    • It has been observed that many villages were resettled when they had rights claims pending, others had their claims illegally rejected or incompletely granted, and several had not even applied to this controversy erupted.
    • However, there are settlements in some of these PAs, and of course, people in villages adjacent to all the PAs are likely to have customary rights.
    • In spite of the court ordering rapid completion of the rights recognition process, there has been almost no progress on this front.

    (2) Issues with expert committees

    • The constitution of the expert committees is faulty. They do not contain expert social scientists familiar with the area. Wildlife enthusiasts are sometimes substituted for experts in life sciences.
    • Many members have challenged the very constitutionality of the FRA, making a travesty of the idea of “objectivity” in the process.

    (3) Criteria judging the damages

    • The criteria being used by the committees to determine the threat of “irreversible damage” to wildlife are quite extreme and are not supported by any consensus even among ecologists.
    • There are no objective criteria decided yet by these committees.

    Conclusion

    • The FRA begins by recognising that forest dwellers “are integral to the very survival and sustainability of the forest ecosystem”.
    • In that context, the CWH provision should not be seen as simply a tool for evicting forest-dwellers to create so-called “inviolate” spaces.
    • It is an opportunity to rigorously and participatorily explore all avenues of co-existence.
    • Such co-existence is indeed possible. In general, forest-dwellers harbour both the knowledge and the attitudes needed for conservation.
    • Co-managing PAs is, therefore, the most effective and socially just long-term solution, and relocation should be seen as the absolute last resort.

    B2BASICS

    Forest Rights act

  • Species in news: Great Indian Hornbill

    A study based on satellite data has flagged a high rate of deforestation in a major hornbill habitat in Arunachal Pradesh.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. In which of the following regions of India are you most likely to come across the ‘Great Indian Hornbill’ in its natural habitat? (CSP 2016)

    (a) Sand deserts of northwest India

    (b) Higher Himalayas of Jammu and Kashmir

    (c) Salt marshes of western Gujarat

    (d) Western Ghats

    About Great Indian Hornbill

    IUCN status: Vulnerable (uplisted from Near Threatened in 2018), CITES: Appendix I

    • The great hornbill (Buceros bicornis) also known as the great Indian hornbill or great pied hornbill, is one of the larger members of the hornbill family.
    • The great hornbill is long-lived, living for nearly 50 years in captivity.
    • It is predominantly fruit-eating, but is an opportunist and preys on small mammals, reptiles and birds.
    • Its impressive size and colour have made it important in many tribal cultures and rituals.
    • A large majority of their population is found in India with a significant proportion in the Western Ghats and the Nilgiris.
    • The nesting grounds of the birds in the Nilgiris North Eastern Range are also believed to support some of their highest densities.

    Their ecological significance

    • Referred to as ‘forest engineers’ or ‘farmers of the forest’ for playing a key role in dispersing seeds of tropical trees, hornbills indicate the prosperity and balance of the forest they build nests in.

    Threats

    • Hornbills used to be hunted for their casques — upper beak — and feathers for adorning headgear despite being cultural symbols of some ethnic communities in the northeast, specifically the Nyishi of Arunachal Pradesh.
    • Illegal logging has led to fewer tall trees where the bird’s nest.

    Back2Basics: Hornbill Festival

    • The Hornbill Festival is a celebration held every year from 1 – 10 December, in Kohima, Nagaland.
    • The festival was first held in the year 2000.
    • It is named after the Indian hornbill, the large and colourful forest bird which is displayed in the folklore of most of the state’s tribes.
    • Festival highlights include the traditional Naga Morungs exhibition and the sale of arts and crafts, food stalls, herbal medicine stalls, flower shows and sales, cultural medley – songs and dances, fashion shows etc.

  • Twin issues: Shrinking water bodies and floods in urban landscapes

    This newscard is an excerpt from the original article published in the D2E.

    Try this question for mains:

    Q.Shrinking water bodies and floods in urban landscapes are mutually induced by each other. Analyse.

    Water in urban landscapes

    • Lakes and wetlands are an important part of the urban ecosystem.
    • They perform significant environmental, social and economic functions — from being a source of drinking water and recharging groundwater to supporting biodiversity and providing livelihoods.
    • Their role becomes even more critical in the present context when cities are facing the challenge of rapid unplanned urbanisation.
    • Their numbers are declining rapidly. For example, Bangalore had 262 lakes in the 1960s; now only 10 of them hold water.

    Issues with urban water bodies

    • Natural streams and watercourses, formed over thousands of years due to the forces of flowing water in the respective watersheds, have been altered because of urbanisation.
    • As a result, the flow of water has increased in proportion to the urbanisation of watersheds.
    • Ideally, natural drains should have been widened to accommodate the higher flows of stormwater.
    • But, on the contrary, they have been a victim of various unlawful activities:

    (1) Pollution

    • There has been an explosive increase in the urban population without a corresponding expansion of civic facilities such as infrastructure for the disposal of waste.
    • As more people are migrating to cities, urban civic services are becoming less adequate.
    • As a result, most urban water bodies in India are suffering because of pollution. The water bodies have been turned into landfills in several cases.
    • Guwahati’s Deepor Beel, for example, is used by the municipal corporation to dump solid waste since 2006. Even the Pallikarni marshland in Chennai is used for solid waste dumping.

    (2) Encroachment

    • This is another major threat to urban water bodies. As more people have been migrating to cities, the availability of land has been getting scarce.
    • Today, even a small piece of land in urban areas has a high economic value.
    • These urban water bodies are not only acknowledged for their ecosystem services but for their real estate value as well.
    • Charkop Lake in Maharashtra, Ousteri Lake in Puducherry, Deepor beel in Guwahati are well-known examples of water bodies that were encroached.

    (3) Illegal mining activities

    • Illegal mining for building material such as sand and quartzite on the catchment and bed of the lake have an extremely damaging impact on the water body.
    • For example, the Jaisamand Lake in Jodhpur, once the only source of drinking water for the city, has been suffering from illegal mining in the catchment area.
    • Unmindful sand mining from the catchment of Vembanad Lake on the outskirts of Kochi has decreased the water level in the lake.

    (4) Unplanned tourism activities

    • Using water bodies to attract tourists has become a threat to several urban lakes in India.
    • Tso Morari and Pongsho lakes in Ladakh have become polluted because of unplanned and unregulated tourism.
    • Another example is that of Ashtamudi Lake in Kerala’s Kollam city, which has become polluted due to spillage of oil from motorboats.

    (5) Absence of administrative framework

    • The biggest challenge is the government apathy towards water bodies.
    • This can be understood from the fact that it does not even have any data on the total number of urban water bodies in the country.
    • Further, CPCB had not identified major aquatic species, birds, plants and animals that faced threat due to pollution of rivers and lakes.

    Original article:

    https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/urbanisation/two-sides-of-the-same-coin-shrinking-water-bodies-and-urban-floods-72702

  • In news: Pokkali Rice

    Farmers from West Bengal are betting on the Pokkali variety of rice from Kerala to tide over a crisis-like situation created by severe seawater incursion into paddy fields in vast areas of the Sundarbans after the cyclone Amphan.

    Try this MCQ:

    Q.Which of the following is the striking feature of the Pokkali Rice recently seen in the news?

    a) It is bio-fortified rice for treating malnutrition

    b) It is a saltwater resistant variety of rice

    c) It is healthy rice used to treat diabetes

    d) None of these

    Pokkali Rice

    • The Pokkali variety of rice is known for its saltwater resistance and flourishes in the rice paddies of coastal Alappuzha, Ernakulam and Thrissur districts.
    • The uniqueness of the rice has brought it the Geographical Indication (GI) tag and is the subject of continuing research.
    • It had been in the news because of its uniqueness and also because a group of people in Kerala have been trying to revive the cultivation of the rice variety in the State.

    Why introduce in Sunderbans?

    • About 80% of the rice paddies in the Sundarbans faced the problem of the saltwater incursion.
    • If the Pokkali experiment succeeds, it would be a good step to turn around the fortunes of the farmers.

  • Species in news: Indian Peafowl

    This newscard is an excerpt from the original article published in the D2E.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Which one of the following is the national aquatic animal of India? (CSP 2015)

    (a) Saltwater crocodile

    (b) Olive ridley turtle

    (c) Gangetic dolphin

    (d) Gharial

    Indian Peafowl

    • The Indian peafowl is a native of India and some parts of Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
    • The Arakan hills prevented their spread further east while the Himalayas and the Karakoram did so northwards.
    • As our national bird, the peacock has the utmost level of legal protection.

    Peacock vs. Peafowl

    • Only the males of the species are peacocks.
    • The females are properly called peahens, while young birds less than a year old are known as peachicks.
    • Collectively they are known as peafowl, regardless of age or gender.
    • Peacocks are male Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) belonging to the Phasianidae family

    Various protections

    • It comes under Section 51 (1-A) of Schedule I of the Wild (Life) (Protection) Act, 1972, with imprisonment that may be extended up to seven years, along with a fine that shall not be less than Rs 10,000.
    • Since 2014, Indian Peafowl has been protected under Appendix III of the CITES.
    • They are listed under the ‘Least Concern’ (LC) category of the IUCN Red Data List.

    Threats

    • Despite this, these birds experienced dwindling populations for many decades due to habitat loss, poaching and contamination of their food sources.
    • In 1991, the peafowl population census conducted by the WWF  revealed that 50 per cent of the species had declined, compared to their number at the time of independence.

  • EV battery recycling in India: An opportunity for change

    This newscard is an excerpt from the original article published in the D2E. It focuses on India for not having adequate legislations that can prevent illegal dumping of spent lithium batteries ahead of the FAME-I and II scheme.

    Practice question for mains:

    Q.What are the different phases of Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles (FAME) Scheme? Discuss various challenges in adopting EV technology in India.

    Background

    • Electric vehicles (EV) are a part of the new normal as the global transportation sector undergoes a paradigm shift, with a clear preference towards cleaner and greener vehicles.
    • Like its western counterparts and China, India has pushed the mandate for EVs as well, through schemes such as Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME) I and FAME II.
    • EV sales in the country are expected to grow annually at a compound annual growth rate of 35 per cent till 2026, according to a market survey by news daily Economic Times.

    Powering the EVs

    • Initially, EVs were powered with lead-acid batteries. Lithium-ion batteries that include other chemical moieties like cobalt, graphite and nickel now form the heart of an EV.
    • At the end of the battery lifespan, what remains is battery waste, comprising enormous amounts of chemicals such as cobalt, electrolytes, lithium, manganese oxide and nickel.

    Latent threats to India

    • India, at present, is underprepared for the sheer volume of EV battery waste expected in the coming decade.
    • Most of our e-waste is dumped in landfills.
    • Further, we do not have adequate legislation that can prevent illegal dumping of spent lithium batteries.
    • This sets a dangerous precedent, as India can potentially become a lithium waste dumpsite for not just waste from domestic EVs, but also from import of spent batteries.

    There is a legal loophole

    • The most recent legislations — the E-waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2011, E-waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2016 and E-waste (Management) Amendment Rules, 2018 — evolved considerably in terms of the range of materials.
    • They do not, however, include a cohesive set of rules for the safe disposal of EV batteries.
    • Li-ion batteries, thus, find no mention, in any framework for end-of-life treatment or recycling.

    Threats posed by un-recycled batteries

    • The batteries constitute substances that — if not recycled or treated in a proper fashion — can cause harm to both the environment and humans.
    • Further, lithium itself spontaneously reacts with moisture and can lead to major landfill explosions.

    Global precedence over batteries regulation:

    Several nations are ahead of the curve and have mandated legislations that deal with battery recycling and treatment:

    (1) EU Batteries Directive

    • The Batteries Directive was issued by the European Union to minimise the negative impact of batteries and accumulators on the environment.
    • The Batteries Directive broke down the different stages of the process of collection and recycling of waste batteries and issued directions on how each of these must be performed.

    (2) Germany

    • Germany puts a legal obligation on producers to collect their products from the consumer and deposit them in containers managed by the GRS Batterien Foundation.
    • It is set up by leading battery manufactures and the German Electrical and Electronics Industry Association in 1998.
    • It ensures collected waste is segregated and sorted according to electrochemical composition — leading to efficient extraction of materials that can be recovered and recycled.

    (3) Japan

    • The Japan Battery Recycling Centre (JBRC), established in 2004, is a producer-responsibility organisation that helps keep the process of recycling waste batteries going.
    • Consumers and offices — that utilise technology running on batteries — discharge delivery to collection sites placed with retailers who register with the JBRC as co-operation shops for recycling.
    • The collection sites facilitate segregation of the batteries by providing four different types of labels for four different types of batteries.

    Where does India stand among these?

    • The Indian e-waste legal regime underwent a tremendous change over time and has only recently embraced EPR and collection of e-waste.
    • A lack of clear scientific guidelines and regulations tailor-made for li-ion batteries, however, leads to poor return of investments in setting up recycling units, as it is a capital-intensive initiative.
    • In October 2019, the framing of a much-awaited recycling policy was proposed by the Union government.
    • It is, however, still awaited. The first step to creating a circular economy for EV batteries is to expand our laws to include li-ion battery chemistries.

    We are late but not the last

    • Large quantities of EV battery waste presented a unique opportunity to nurture a domestic recycling industry, which is currently in its infancy.
    • The process of recycling can help recover up to half the valuable metals, including aluminium, cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese and nickel, which can then be used for secondary applications.
    • Tata Chemicals Ltd, for example, commissioned a li-ion battery recycling plant in Maharashtra in 2019.

    Way forward

    • Governments must take a proactive stance when it comes to the development of batteries that cause less harm to the environment.
    • There must be an extended producer responsibility (EPR) mechanism that ensured manufacturers of batteries to bear a legal obligation of their products being safely recycled and disposed of.

    Back2Basics: Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles

    FAME I

    • In this phase, market creation through demand incentives was aimed at incentivizing all vehicle segments i.e. 2-Wheelers, 3-Wheelers Auto, Passenger 4-Wheeler vehicles, Light Commercial Vehicles and Buses.
    • The demand incentive was available to buyers of EV in the form of an upfront reduced purchase price to enable wider adoption.

    FAME II

    • This phase will mainly focus on supporting electrification of public & shared transportation, and aims to support through subsidies 7000 e-Buses, 5 lakh e-3 Wheelers, 55000 e-4 Wheeler Passenger Cars and 10 lakh e-2 Wheelers.
    • The scheme will be applicable mainly to vehicles used for public transport or those registered for commercial purposes in e-3W, e-4W and e-bus segments.
    • However, privately-owned registered-2W will also be covered under the scheme as a mass segment.
    • In addition, the creation of charging infrastructure will be supported in selected cities and along major highways to address range anxiety among users of electric vehicles.

    Original article:

    https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/pollution/electric-vehicle-battery-recycling-in-india-an-opportunity-for-change-72621