New Delhi: Taking a leaf out of Delhi’s electric vehicle (EV) policy 2.0, the Assam government is ‘open to electrification mandates’ as it prepares its new EV policy, the state transport department told Mint.
Delhi’s EV Policy 2.0 announced in July, banned the sale of internal combustion engine (ICE) two-wheelers from April 2028 and three-wheelers from January 2027.
Mint first reported on 10 September that Delhi’s electrification mandates could be replicated in other states, with the government’s think tank, Niti Aayog, consulting with state governments and assessing the impact of state-level EV policies.
Assam’s commissioner of transport, Manavendra Pratap Singh, said in an emailed response that the state will continue to support EVs with a new policy—Assam EV Policy 2.0—in the works. The state’s EV policy launched in 2021 lapsed in September 2026.
The development is significant because Assam ranked 19th and 5th in India for two- and three-wheeler sales, respectively, with around 500,000-600,000 vehicles registered annually.
In response to a direct query about whether the Assam state government is open to implementing EV mandates like those enforced in Delhi, Singh said in an emailed response, “The State is open to electrification mandates, with setting up of EV charging stations, and details thereof will be available in due course of time in Assam’s EV policy 2.0.”
Assam will soon provide a 3% motor vehicle tax concession for electric vehicles, the transport commissioner said. “A 3% MV tax subvention has been announced in Budget 2026-27 to support EV buyers, and it is to be notified soon,” the emailed response said.
While details about Assam’s new EV policy could not be ascertained at the time of publication, the state’s 2021 EV Policy aimed to increase EV adoption, the share of EVs among newly registered vehicles, to 25% by 2026, with the objective of improving the state’s air quality. The 2021 policy included financial incentives and subsidies for electric two-wheelers, three-wheelers, and cars, as well as subsidies for investments in setting up at least 500 charging stations.
The state had 526 public EV chargers installed in the last five years, of which 461 are operational, the ministry of heavy industries told the Rajya Sabha on 1 March this year in a written response. The 2021 policy also focused on electrifying public transport bus fleets and government-owned fleets in the state.
Assam accounted for 1.93% of India’s total vehicle sales, with 597,133 vehicles sold out of the 3.08 crore sold in India in FY26. In FY26, electric vehicle adoption in Assam reached 15.59% across vehicle segments, meaning more than 15% of all new vehicles registered in Assam in the last fiscal year were EVs. India’s EV adoption reached 8.5% in FY26, according to the Vahan portal.
Assam’s EV adoption was driven by three-wheelers, a vehicle segment where India is the world’s largest market, according to the International Energy Agency.
EVs are around twice as expensive as conventional fuel-driven vehicles in India. However, prices for two-wheelers are nearly on par, according to a December 2025 KPMG report.
Advisor to the Prime Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Tarun Kapoor, said in August that restrictions on sales of conventional-fuel two-wheelers had started being implemented in Delhi and that other regions may follow.
There has been industry pushback. Electrification mandates in Delhi became a flashpoint for automakers in the world’s third-largest market by sales, as lobby group Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) said that incentives, not mandates, would be the best enablers for clean mobility.
Queries emailed to the ministry of heavy industries, SIAM, and automakers Maruti Suzuki,, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, TVS Motor,,, Ola Electric, and its subsidiary Switch Mobility, and Euler Motors on 12 October remained unanswered till press time.
While there has been support for EV mandates at the regional level, at least one expert has supported the move to control the supply of ICE vehicles.
“Assam taking a leaf out of Delhi’s approach is a welcome move. It can help improve air quality in the state while accelerating mainstream EV adoption across India,” said Amit Bhatt, India managing director of the International Council on Clean Transportation, a global think tank.
“Experience shows that subsidies alone cannot scale EV adoption. We also need supply-side regulations that push the market towards electrification. Delhi’s EV Policy has shown that bold action is possible at the subnational level, particularly when public health and safety are at stake,” Bhatt said.
Two- and three-wheelers account for around 60% of transport-related pollution in Delhi, according to a 2025 report by the Council for International Economic Understanding (CIEU), a New Delhi-based think tank, drawing on research by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a Delhi-based think tank, and analysis by international development and sustainability consultancy Dalberg Advisors.
The clean mobility push includes flex-fuel vehicles, compressed natural gas vehicles, hybrids, electric vehicles, and hydrogen vehicles, aiming to achieve zero carbon emissions by 2070.
Delhi-NCR’s annual air pollution season—the November-January period—is marked by extreme air pollution, with routine Air Quality Index (AQI) readings above 400 in the ‘severe’ category. Assam, on its part, also faces seasonal air pollution, particularly in Guwahati, where winter levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) can rise sharply. A study, published in November 2024 by researchers at IIT Kanpur, found that average winter PM2.5 concentrations in Guwahati reached 113.05 micrograms per cubic metre, nearly three times India’s annual national standard of 40 micrograms per cubic metre.
