Reliance Industries, India seeks to extend the setup of EV battery plants

The Mukesh Ambani conglomerate, Reliance Industries, said that its electric vehicle battery unit had asked for additional time from the federal government to build its plant. This was part of an incentive program based on production.

The conglomerate failed to specify the duration of the requested extension or the reasons for the delay.

Reliance received incentives from the government under its production-linked incentive scheme (PLI) in March 2022 to set up 5 gigawatts of local manufacturing for advanced chemistry cell (ACC) capacity.

The 181 billion-rupee scheme (2,07 billion dollars) required that companies set up manufacturing plants within two years.

Reliance said the unit received a letter imposing a fine from the Ministry of Heavy Industries due to the delays. As of March 3, the penalty was 31 million rupees (about 355,293).

In order to reach its goal of 30% of the total vehicle sales, the Indian government has launched an incentive program to increase the local production of batteries. In India, electric models accounted for about 2% total sales of cars last year.

(source: Reuters)