MUMBAI, April 30 -- After nearly six months of deliberations, the Maharashtra government has finally decided to roll out its ambitious plan to promote electric vehicles (EVs) from May 1. Its last policy, envisioned in 2021, expired in March this year, after falling short on many promises -- primarily an inability to reduce high prices of vehicles and paucity of charging stations. The new policy, which will hold good for the next five years (2030), received cabinet nod on Tuesday. Many provisions have been made to support and boost its function. There are sops such toll waivers to all EVs on three major expressways, 50% waiver on other highways, discount in price between Rs.30,000 to Rs.20 lakh in various categories of EVs, and a robust plan to lay out charging infrastructure on highways and housing societies. (See box.) The aggressive incentives and discounts however will cost the state Rs.1993 crore, and Rs.3000 crore towards toll waiver over the next five years . The policy aims to increase the number of two-wheeler EVs to 40%, EV four wheelers to 30% and passenger electric buses to 15% against the existing total number of vehicles in respective categories in the next five years. "The new policy aims to incentivise the consumption and manufacturing of EVs. At the same time, the policy has planned to strengthen the charging infrastructure by giving subsidies at various levels," said chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, on Tuesday. Among the incentives is a plan to set up charging stations at every 25 kilometers on the highways, a provision of subsidy of Rs.5 lakh for 1000 stations of 5-0 to 250 kilowatts and Rs.10 lakh to 500 stations of 250 to 500 KWs. "Planning authorities like municipal corporations, Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) and Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) have been asked to link their policies to promote the charging station infrastructure. By virtue of that, all new housing projects should have space for charging stations in their design, while commercial layouts should have 50% parking lots reserved for charging EVs. The existing commercial establishments should have 20% space of parking lots. After the chief minister shared the policy's fine print, transport minister Pratap Sarnaik underscored the need for a "robust infrastructure of charging stations". The aggressive stance of the new policy comes on the back of a low percentage of EV four-wheeler registration till January 31, at just 2.73% against a target of 5%; the two-wheeler registration was 8.33 against a target of 10%; while the three-wheeler registration was 14.9% against a target of 20%. The past numbers were referenced in the new proposal, which HT has seen. The percentage of EVs in a few states like Delhi (12%), Karnataka (9%) and Tamil Nadu (8%) is way higher than Maharashtra, where it is around 6.5%....