Agartala, May 25 (IANS): To curb vehicular pollution and save fuel, the Tripura government has adopted the Tripura Electric Vehicle Policy 2022 to promote electric vehicles, officials said here on Wednesday.

A senior official of the Transport Department said that Tripura is the 15th state in the country and third in the northeastern region after Assam and Meghalaya to adopt the electric vehicle policy.

He said that the state cabinet headed by Chief Minister Manik Saha adopted the Tripura Electric Vehicle Policy 2022 to encourage people to use more and more electric vehicles in the state.

The official said that there are 60,000 different types of vehicles in Tripura and the government has targeted to convert 10 per cent of these 60,000 vehicles into electric driven in the next five years.

According to the official, the electric vehicles policy is already in place in 14 states, including Assam and Meghalaya in the northeastern region of the country.

Meanwhile, in Tripura, over 12,000 vehicles including around 8,000 private cars and 3,800 auto-rickshaws are run by the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), provided by the state owned Tripura Natural Gas Company Limited (TNGCL).

The CNG is cheaper than the petrol and diesel and entirely pollution free.

The TNGCL, a joint venture between GAIL (India) Ltd, Tripura Industrial Development Corporation Ltd and Assam Gas Company Ltd, is the first to set up CNG in 1990 in the entire eastern India.