State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid has advised the authorities concerned to make a customer-friendly electric vehicle (EV) recharging policy as EVs will dominate the future transport sector.

“We’ve to put in place a pragmatic policy on this most burning issue considering its various aspects,” he said while speaking at a virtual meeting on “Guidelines for Electric Vehicle Re-charging” on Sunday.

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The location of recharging stations, the types of the vehicles and other issues should be brought under consideration while framing a policy guideline for recharging electric vehicles, Nasrul said.

Power Secretary Md Habibur Rahman, chairman of Bangladesh Energy and Power Research Council Satyajit Karmakar, chairman of Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority (Sreda) Mohammad Alauddin, chairman of Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) Belayet Hossain, chairman of Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board (BERB) Moin Uddin, director general of Power Cell Mohammad Hossain and heads of departments of various organizations also attended the virtual meeting.

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Nasrul said electric vehicles will dominate the future transport sector as the average cost of a petrol-run vehicle to travel 1000 km is Tk 5,375, while an electric vehicle will cost Tk 1,250.

“Electric vehicles are environmental-friendly ones and the mechanical efficiency of electric vehicles is much higher than that of petrol-run vehicles,” he said.

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The state minister said one of the most-talked-about issues in the world right now is the electric car. “We’ll have to prepare now to determine what the charging station will look like, what kind of tariff will be set, where and how the overall information of the vehicle will be stored.

The state minister said Bangladesh is now working for a fourth industrial revolution and sustainable and renewable energy will change the course of this revolution.

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In order to ensure a balance in the environment, he said, the use of electric vehicles will gradually be increasing.

Nasrul instructed the power distribution companies to introduce a separate team to deal with the issue of the electric vehicle recharging system.

The participants at the meeting hoped to work together as the BRTA chairman said the registration of electric vehicles is underway.

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