Govt Planning to Phase Out Petrol Bikes With Electric Bikes

As Pakistan’s economy struggles, the Government is devising plans to phase out bikes with petrol engines and switch to electric bikes, which will help reduce the country’s import bill as Pakistan’s import are mainly comprised of oil imports.

The Government is planning to promote electric bikes instead of motorcycles with conventional engines that will help control the country’s cash outflow in the form of oil imports and help to save depleting foreign exchange reserves.

During a press conference earlier this week, the Minister for Defence, Khawaja Asif alongside Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Maryam Aurangzeb, announced the Energy Conservation Plan to overcome the country’s energy crisis by reducing fuel consumption.

The Defence Minister, Khawaja Asif, proposed that Pakistan needs to shift from motorcycles with conventional petrol engines to electric bikes, which would help reduce the country’s import bill as well as benefit individuals and the environment.

He revealed that Pakistan spends around $3 billion worth of petrol for motorbikes, which is why the government is devising a plan to completely phase out conventional motorcycles with electric bikes in the coming years.

According to some reports, the Ministry of Industries and Production is planning to produce more electric vehicles, including electric bikes in Pakistan. Furthermore, the ministry is reportedly working on financing plans as subsidies to promote the shift towards electric vehicles.

These reports state that the ministry plans to produce over 175,000 e-bikes in the next few years with government planning to bear around half of the price of the electric bike to encourage the shift from conventional engine bikes.

Financing Plan

According to the details, the government will offer an installment plan for the motorcycles, which includes a down payment of Rs. 10,000 with government paying Rs. 90,000 for an electric bike that costs Rs. 170,000.

This means that the customer will only need to pay Rs. 80,000 (excluding an interest rate of Kibor 2+) in total to get the electric bike. The ministry has proposed a 24-month installment plan with Rs. 4,300 payment per month.

The installment plan will be aimed at students with salaried payments, government employees, private sector employees and self-employed individuals with NTN and bank account among others.

This scheme is expected to launch this year, but there is no confirmation regarding the final details or exact date.

It is pertinent to mention that electric bikes do not have a huge demand in Pakistan and while there are companies like JOLTA producing and manufacturing e-bikes, they have very few sales compared to conventional motorcycles.

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