Ather 450 and Ather 340 are the the two electric vehicles launched by Ather Energy, a Bangalore based company which builds Electric Vehicles. Mr Tarun Mehta, Co-Founder and CEO of Ather Energy has expressed his expectations from the upcoming budget.
“There are 3 areas that we would like the budget to focus on – component cost, encouraging Make in India and rationalization & simplification of the GST structure.
To address the key cost challenges that industry faces, we would like to see reduced import duties on lithium ion cells, motors and motor controllers. These three account for a major proportion of the vehicle cost and any relief on these would provide strong financial support for OEMs to bring out vehicles that are near-equal performance to petrol/diesel vehicles. Today’s cost structures make it largely unviable to do so. To encourage Make in India, we would recommend an increase in import duty for fully assembled batteries, since there are local options available in India.
As a manufacturer, we would like the government to do away with the inverted GST structure under which we collect 12% on selling our vehicles and pay 18% GST on raw materials and expenses. Also, the lack of clarity on the refund process adds more complications to this inverted tax structure.
Lastly, any policy intervention needs to be committed for 3-5 years. A lack of predictability in government policy becomes a deterrent for the industry to make long term investments, which impacts the growth of the industry.”
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