“Last month, we came up with a new e-vehicle policy. Yesterday, we announced a rebate for e-vehicle buyers as part of our e-vehicle policy,” Desai told The Indian Express Thursday.

The Minister said in the next four years, 10 percent of all public transport buses will be e-vehicles. “Similarly, 25 percent state transport buses will be e-vehicles. As of now, the percentage of e vehicles is much lesser than imagined”.

But the big move, Deshmukh said, will be the mandatory use of e-vehicles in all government offices. “Be it state government department, civic bodies, Zilla Parishads or gram panchayat, henceforth all purchases will be of e-vehicles. We will do away with petrol and diesel vehicles. We have already issued directives to effect,” the Minister said while emphasizing on promoting the non-polluting mode of transport.

Stating that the government was attracting e-vehicle manufactures and the battery-makers by offering incentives, Desai said,” In the next four years, there will be 2,500 charging stations across the state which will further boost the e-vehicles industry.”

Live Hindustan said chief minister Yogi Adityanath took the decision during the meeting of Team-9 officials on Sunday. Adityanath said that Covid-19 cases are surging in different states of the country. A negative RT-PCR report should be made mandatory for people coming to Uttar Pradesh from those states where the rate of corona positive is more than three percent, which is not more than four days old from the start of the journey.

These rules should also be implemented for people coming by private vehicles apart from road, air, and rail routes, Adityanath said. Intensive contact tracing and testing of people coming to Uttar Pradesh from these states should also be done. Their antigen test and thermal scanning must be done on arrival in the state. Guidelines should be issued in this regard.