Reliance Industries has won a bid under an incentives programme which supports EV battery production, a government statement said on Wednesday.

Earlier this year, seven companies submitted bids to set up local manufacturing units for the production of advanced chemistry cells, or ACCs, under the government’s production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme. The Centre has allocated ₹3,620 crore in the present round.

Reliance can make upto 10 gigawatts of ACCs, the statement said.

The oil-to-telecom conglomerate beat six other competitors, which included units of battery maker Amara Raja Energy and power producer JSW Energy.

ACCs are used as EV cells, critical to the development of electric vehicles in the world’s third largest car market.

Electric models made up about 2 per cent of total car sales in India last year, and the government wants to increase that to 30 per cent by 2030.

The companies who submitted bids were ACME Cleantech Solutions, Amara Raja Advanced Cell Technologies, Anvi Power Industries, JSW Neo Energy, Lucas TVS, Reliance Industries and Waaree Energies Limited.

All seven bids were evaluated, and six companies were shortlisted for financial evaluation.

The financial bids for the qualified bidders were opened on August 2, after the announcement of the results of the technical evaluation.

“Final evaluation of the shortlisted bidders was carried out according to the quality and cost-based selection (QCBS) mechanism and the bidders were ranked based on their combined technical and financial scores,” the government statement said.

“The ministry has awarded the ACC capacity to the shortlisted bidder with highest overall score, i.e., Reliance Industries Limited, and the remaining five shortlisted bidders are put on the waiting list according to their rank, starting from Rank II onward,” the statement said.

The waitlisted bidders under the programme in order of preference are ACME Cleantech, Amara Raja Advanced Cell Technologies, Waaree Energies, JSW Neo Energy and Lucas TVS.

In May 2021, the cabinet approved the PLI scheme for ACCs battery storage of combined capacity of 50GWh with an outlay of ₹18,100 crore.

The first round of the ACC PLI bidding was concluded in March 2022, and three beneficiary firms were allocated 30GWh capacity.

The government meanwhile is expected to finalise the third phase of its flagship electric mobility adoption scheme FAME in a month or two, heavy industries minister H.D. Kumaraswamy said on Wednesday.