Delhi’s air pollution crisis has well-documented health and economic costs. Transport emissions are a major contributor to air pollution, and reducing them requires cutting how much Delhi drives on fossil fuels, not just cleaning up what’s already on the road. Delhi EV Policy 2.0 is a welcome step in that direction, as it promotes electric mobility through a mix of financial incentives, a firm timeline for switching to electric vehicles (EVs), and charging infrastructure development.
Viewed in conjunction with the Winter Pollution Master Plan and the Centre’s Naya Safar scheme to replace old trucks and buses, it offers a clearer pathway to reducing transport’s contribution to air pollution. The policy also links to the Vehicle Scrapping Policy and the Battery Waste Management Rules, a sensible way to leverage the existing ecosystem to simultaneously advance India’s climate goals and build domestic supply chains for the critical minerals needed for electrification.
How Delhi EV Policy 2.0 is different
Delhi has attempted to clean up its transport sector before.
In 1998, the Supreme Court directed the replacement of Delhi’s diesel-powered public transport fleet with CNG vehicles. But the air quality gains have been overshadowed by the increasing use of private vehicles, which, according to a 2024 Centre for Science and Environment report, account for 49 per cent of motorised trips in Delhi.
In 2015, the National Green Tribunal banned old diesel (over 10 years) and petrol (over 15 years) vehicles in Delhi-NCR. The Supreme Court upheld this ban in 2018 and clarified last December that it applies only to vehicles below BS-IV emission standards.
However, enforcement of the ban has lagged, and the Commission for Air Quality Management has highlighted the slow removal of these vehicles as a serious challenge to improving air quality.
Delhi EV Policy 2.0 takes a different approach. Instead of relying primarily on prohibition or incentives alone (as the Centre’s former FAME scheme did), it combines time-bound electrification mandates with financial incentives for scrapping old vehicles and purchasing new EVs.
These incentives aim to nudge consumers away from combustion engine-based vehicles and toward EVs, while the electrification mandates provide policy certainty for manufacturers and consumers.
The pace and scale of this proposed transition are unprecedented for an Indian city and will serve as a pilot elsewhere. This is exactly why its goals must be matched by the necessary infrastructural investments and regulatory clarity.
Public charging needs an overhaul
First, there is a need for accessible and reliable charging infrastructure.
As of January 2026, Delhi had 8,849 EV charging points and plans to increase them to around 36,000 by 2030 — a significant jump requiring substantial progress.
While rules already exist for setting up this infrastructure, there are serious concerns around the reliability and accessibility of existing charging stations due to inadequate maintenance and upkeep. A 2024 study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis found that around 84 per cent of Delhi’s public EV chargers were non-functional, primarily due to equipment theft, poor maintenance, outdated technology, and unstable power supply.
Charging prices also vary. According to the government’s Switch Delhi website, charging costs range from Rs 10-100 per unit across locations, even for the same charging output. This kind of unpredictability undermines the consumer trust on which this scale of EV adoption depends.
Delhi Transco Limited, tasked with preparing SOPs for managing public charging and battery-swapping infrastructure, should address these reliability and access concerns. It must establish robust standards and service-level benchmarks that provide minimum uptime requirements, publish real-time availability data, and track vendor performance against clear benchmarks, with penalties for non-compliance and a proper consumer redressal mechanism.
Trouble at home
Second, residential charging remains overlooked.
The policy mentions that resident welfare associations (RWAs), housing societies, and developers will be encouraged to build community/private charging infrastructure, but lacks clarity on how.
Setting up a residential EV charging connection is a laborious process involving the submission of several documents, including the vehicle registration certificate, proof of property ownership or the owner’s undertaking for rented property, wiring and charger test reports, and no-objection certificates from the RWA and the fire department for basement connections.
A 2026 study by EV tech company Kazam and the Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy found that nearly 45 per cent of Indian homes require electrical upgrades for safe EV charging. High upfront retrofitting costs, RWA opposition or hesitation, power reliability, and fire risks curtail charging expansion, especially in older buildings.
The policy currently lacks clarity on the inter-departmental coordination required to address these concerns. Delhi should take its cue from states like Haryana, which have started revising building codes to integrate charging infrastructure into urban planning.
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Making the transition work
Finally, even with incentives, new EVs may be expensive for many because of their higher upfront costs. Favourable financial arrangements, such as loans on preferential terms, must be explored to promote wider EV access. A Transport Department committee will determine which models qualify for incentives, and it must prioritise smaller, more energy- and cost-efficient models over higher-end SUVs to facilitate the EV transition.
Overall, the EV policy is a step in the right direction, but its success will depend on closing the gaps identified from past transport transitions.
Electric mobility can help remove polluting vehicles from the road, but solving congestion, parking, and road safety-related concerns requires long-term urban planning that prioritises the needs of the wider populace through matched investments in walkability, last-mile connectivity, and public transport.
The Supreme Court has declared the right to live in a pollution-free environment and to walk safely as fundamental rights. Let’s consider this policy a first step toward realising these rights.
Himanshu Pabreja is Research Lead and Bhargav Krishna is Convenor at the Sustainable Futures Collaborative. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)