KATHMANDU : All seven provinces have decided to reduce tax for electric vehicles in a bid to reduce vehicular emissions.
The provincial governments, in the recently determined tax for the fiscal year 2075-76, has announced tax exemption for electric vehicles and 50 percent waiver on road tax for such zero emission vehicles. “The electric vehicles needn’t pay tax,” states the vehicle tax determination of provincial government.
The government has announced that the tax for electric vehicles with less than 1500-watt capacity will be equivalent to 150 CC vehicle, and for the e-vehicles with a capacity beyond 1501 watt, the tax will be equivalent to 151-250CC vehicles with a 50 percent waiver on road tax.
Moreover, all seven provincial governments have decided to levy additional tax for the vehicles older than 15 years in order to reduce the use of fossil fuel vehicles. “The fossil fuel vehicles older than 14 years will have to pay additional 5 percent tax for every added year,” the provincial vehicle tax states.
The government has been levying 7 percent tax for microbus, bus, truck, tipper, minibus, mini-truck, and mini-tipper, and 8 percent for car, jeep, and van, 10 percent tax for the vehicles over 2000 CC.
Section Officer at the Department of Transport Management, Rajan Pokharel, said all the seven provincial governments have determined the vehicle tax. He said the government has granted exemption on annual tax and 50 percent waiver on road construction and maintenance tax for the electric vehicles.
The government has been providing 50 waivers on road tax for the electric vehicles since the fiscal year 2073-74. The provincial government also embraced the decision after country adopted federalism.
The Environment-friendly Vehicle and Transport Policy 2071 has set a target to operate at least 20 percent electric vehicles of the total vehicles.
Thought the Environment-friendly Policy has provisioned separate route for electric vehicles, it has not been implemented. Department Spokesperson Aryal says separate route has not been assigned for electric vehicles until now.
How many electric vehicles are there?
It seems the Department Transport Management has not data on the number of electric vehicles in Nepal. The Environment-friendly Vehicle and Transport Policy 2071 showed that over 600 SAFA tempos, over 1500 two wheelers and over 100 cars and a few micro buses and hybrid cars and a few passengers busses and goods carrier vehicles are operational in Nepal.
According to Economic Survey 2074-75, a total of 30,52,397 vehicles have been registered in Nepal from the fiscal year 2046-47 to 8th month of the fiscal year 2074-75. Motorbike accounts for the 79 percent of the total vehicles.
10 percent customs duty on electric vehicles
The Customs Department said the government has fixed the customs duty on electric vehicles to 10 percent, and waived 13 percent value added tax (VAT) for such emission-free vehicles.
Statistics officer at the Customs Department Ram Wagle said the government has cut the customs duty on the import of clean vehicles to 10 percent and waived the VAT in order to promote and encourage the environment-friendly vehicles as they do not produce carbon emissions.
The department said 4989 three-wheelers and 250 electric vehicles were imported in the fiscal year 2074-75. The electric vehicles are imported from China, Korea and India.
Govt’s past efforts
The government had initiated the attempt to operate environment-friendly vehicles for the past 42 years. The operation of electric vehicles started in Nepal since 2032 BS after the Chinese government gifted 22 trolley buses by making necessary infrastructure for the same.
The government had operated trolley bus service in the 13-km route between Tripureshwor in Kathmandu to Surya-Binayk in Bhaktapur. However, the trolley bus service couldn’t get continuity due to various weaknesses seen in the management.
Similarly, with the support from various national and international organizations, Nepal government operated began the operation of electric tempos since 2056. But the electrically-powered Safa tempo couldn’t become commercially successful.
As a result of the increasing power-cut growth of fossil fuel run vehicles in the route operating Safa tempos, the electric tempos have not been able to make a mark.
