Hero Electric, Okinawa Likely To Be Barred From All EV Incentive Schemes
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Multiple electric vehicle manufacturers including Hero Electric, Okinawa, and Benling India are likely to get excluded from participation in any incentive programme. These companies are defaulters under the MHI’s flagship Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India Phase-II (FAME-II) scheme.
According to an official who was quoted by a news agency said, “The next step is debarment from all Indian government schemes. This has not happened so far as it is a gradual process and the Finance Ministry approves exclusion of a company from any of the ministries’ schemes/policies.”
The official also said that AMO Mobility, Greaves Electric Mobility and Revolt Motors have received no-objection certificates under FAME-II but are not registered under the Electric Mobility Promotion Scheme (EMPS) 2024.
Earlier, the government had issued recovery notices to these companies and expected to recover around INR 155 crore from Hero Electric, INR 125 crore from Okinawa, and INR 50 crore from Benling.
On reaching out to Hero Electric, the company’s spokesperson said that “Since the matter is sub-judice, we cannot comment on this.”
In 2022, a certain complaints were received by the MHI regarding violation of the FAME-II scheme alleging that various FAME-II registered OEMs were selling their products in violation of the localisation requirements under the scheme. The complaints also mentioned the rampant imports by these companies.
The ministry then conducted enquiry on 13 companies, out of which six companies including Hero Electric, Okinawa Autotech, Ampere Vehicles (INR 124.91 crore), Benling India, AMO Mobility (INR 83 lakh), Lohia Auto (INR 11 lakh) and Revolt (INR 44.30 crore) were found to be flouting the norms and were imposed fines totalling INR 469 crore.
Out of these six OEMs, AMO Mobility, Greaves Electric Mobility and Revolt had returned the subsidies with interest within few months. But, Hero Electric, Okinawa and Benling did not refund back the incentives and were consequently deregistered in the months of October and November 2023.
In March 2024, the MHI launched the Electric Mobility Incentive Scheme (EMPS) to encourage the adoption of two and three-wheeler electric vehicles for commercial purposes and provide necessary support for the development and manufacturing of EVs in the country.
