Printed on: “The Rising Nepal-Friday Suppliment” 13th July 2007
By : Sampurna Lata Tuladhar
Petroleum products (POL) like petrol and diesel are non-renewable sources of energy. They cannot be used for ever and reproduced easily. In the one hand it takes millions of years to produce them again and on the other, due to growing population, practice of using of non renewable energy is becoming popular.
Consumers in Nepal have been facing petroleum product shortage for long time. Many have stopped riding private vehicles due to lack of POL products in the market. Till now it is because of inadequate supply of fuel in the country. But one day when the natural oil reserve gets emptied, it will be unavailable in the entire world. What would we do then?
The only alternative to this situation will be use of “Electric Vehicles” which is also called as “Battery Vehicle”. Electricity can be generated either by solar energy or by hydropower and stored in batteries. Both of which are renewable sources of energy.
Also the petroleum and diesel vehicles are the main agents of environment pollution Kathmandu city. Considering these facts, electrical vehicles are very suitable for Kathmandu roads. They are environment friendly and they have low noise level. Their batteries can be recycled and charged at night. Above all electric vehicles help reduce the dependency on imported fossil fuel.
HISTORY OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES IN NEPAL:
TROELLY BUS:
Troelly bus was the first Electric Vehicle ever introduced in Kathmandu. With the assistance of the Government of People’s Republic of China ‘Trolley Buses’ or the first electric vehicles were installed in Nepal in 1975 for public transportation. At that time, 22 trolley buses plied along the 13-km route from Tripureswor of Kathmandu to Surya-Binayak of Bhaktapur.
In 1997, ten more buses were granted by the Government of People’s Republic of China to meet the increasing demands. Although these “Clean Buses” provided an excellent service to commuters at reasonable prices, they failed prey to mismanagement and corruption. At the result, the service came to a halt a few years ago. Though efforts were made to revive the services, only the few trolley buses are now providing services to and from Tripureswor and Koteshwor. The service has been reduced to 5Km from 13 and the number of buses operating has dropped to three from 31.
SAFA TEMPOO:
In 1996, Nepal Electric Vehicle Company introduced battery-operated electric three wheelers, which is known as ‘Safa Tempos’. After the announcement of government to ban the polluting diesel three wheelers from Kathmandu valley, most of them were converted to Safa Tempos. Now the number of Safa Tempos has exceeded 600 and is their number is continuing to increase. These tempos are now also used by offices too such as government ministries, municipalities, as well as private organizations.
With the help of fully charged two sets of batteries, the capacity of Safa Tempo is to travel a distance of 50 to 60kms. One battery set has twelve 6volt deep cycle lead acid batteries. Four new Safa Tempos with enhanced features are manufactured to meet the tourism industry’s need for clean transportation.
There are many private organizations which are working on electric vehicles and trying to decrease air pollution of the city. But none of them were permitted to run the vehicles on the street and faced lots of problem to registering them.
REVA electric car:
In 1996, Mr. Adam Friedensohn, (USA) Marketing Consultant of Eco-Visions Pvt. Ltd. (Nepal), reached an agreementwith REVA Electric Car Company, (Bangalore, India) to secure the exclusive distributionship of REVA in Nepal. In 2001, REVA Electric Car Company renewed the distributorship for Nepal with Eco-Visions Pvt. Ltd. In 2002 (Feb), the first five REVA cars were imported into Nepal via Birgunj Customs under the promised 10 per cent Duty.
In 2002 (Mar), Birgunj Customs refused to release the cars at the gazetted10% Duty, requested clarification from Kathmandu Customs Department. In 2002 (Apr), customs requested Ministry of Population and Environment (MOPE) if these five cars were really electric cars and if they required the conformity of production (COP).
The MOPE reply positively comfirming that they are electric cars and did not require COP as they have zero pollution”. Still, Finance Ministry refused to release the cars and held the file for no apparent reason.
In 2002 (Jul), in New Budget released the electric car tax was increased to 100 per cent from the existing 10 per cent. Eco-Visions applied to release at the original gazette per centd uty but the Finance Ministry refused. Eco-Visions then refused to pay the high tax and the five cars were left in Birgunj Customs Yard. In 2005 (Dec), after 4 years of many attempts, the 5 REVA cars were finally released from Birganj Customs via auction to Eco-Visions and brought to Kathmandu for restoration, registration and sale. All the cars were in very bad condition.
In 2006 (Apr), those cars were fully restored and applied to be registered in Bagmati Zone. While awaiting the number plates, the 5 cars were driven “ON TEST” in the Kathmandu Valley. In 2006 (Jun), the Minister of Science and Technology ordered the Department of Transport to register the cars as they are non-polluting.
In 2006 (Jun), the Dept of Transport ordered Ekantakuna to register the cars but they refused the order demand a Cabinet decision to register them. In 2007 (May), after getting unanimous approval from Department of Transport, the KMC and the Valley Traffic Police in support of registering the cars in Bagmati, the new Minister of Science and Technology were requested to get the Cabinet signature to register the cars in Bagmati Zone.
Due to the raise in tax on electric vehicle from 10per cent to 100, the rate of REVA is raised from Rs. 867,105 to Rs. 1,545,093. At 0% Duty and VAT free, it is only Rs. 698,177. REVA was waiting for cabinet’s decision to register it long time ago and cabinet is busy discussing in other important issues.
Finally REVA got permission from cabinet for its registration on 4th July 2007. We Nepalese hope that Nepal Government will be serious on environment issues and reduce the tax on electric vehicles in future because it is important to realize the problem of worsening environment of the city.
This way the problem of fuel can be solved sooner.