BENGALURU: Union Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Minister Anant G. Geete flagged off "3 Cities FAME India Eco Drive" aimed at conserving energy and environmental benefits.

"Clean mobility solutions are being experimented and India cannot be far behind. Hybrid and electric vehicles are the need of future as they have come up as an excellent alternative solution for the petro products," said Geete, according to an official statement.

The drive envisages promoting electrification of automobile transportation to achieve the objectives laid in National Mission for Electric Mobility (NMEM).

As many as 46 hybrid and electric vehicles consisting of two-wheelers, cars and buses from different automobile manufacturers participated in the eco-drive which began from the Red Fort here and culminated in Gurgaon.

The drive is part under the Rs 800 crore two-year Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid & Electric Vehicles (FAME) India national scheme launched in April this year.

"The initial project for FAME India is nearly Rs 800 crore but for its completion we require Rs 14,000 crore," said Geete.

He said 25,000 hybrid and electric vehicles have been sold in India thus far.

Similar environmental friendly drives will also be conducted in Jaipur and in Chandigarh on December 7, the statement said.

Eco-friendly vehicles from Tata Motors, Toyota Kirloskar Motors, Maruti Suzuki India, BMW India, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hero Electric, Electrotherm and Lohia Motors took part in the drive.

"We are proud to be associated with the FAME Eco-Drive Rally, as it is aligned to our mission of curbing one of the major environmental threats that our country is facing today - pollution," said Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV) in the statement.

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