In a bid to facilitate the masses, the government on Friday introduced ‘Meri Gari Scheme’. Addressing the National Assembly budget session, Minister for Finance Shaukat Tarin said that the government has abolished customs and regulatory duties on vehicles up to 850cc under the scheme. Brand new vehicles up to 800cc have also been exempted from the advance customs duty, he added. He maintained that the government has slashed sales tax on locally manufactured cars from 17% to 12.5%. The government has also exempted Federal Excise Duty (FED) on 850cc cars, he said, adding that they will slash duty on electric cars. Tarin said the government was encouraging the manufacturing and use of electric vehicles to address environmental issues and reduce reliance on gasoline besides provision of cheaper source of transportation to public. In his budget speech, the minister said that for the purpose, various tax exemptions and concessions were proposed, which include tax exemption on import of CKD kits for local manufacturing of electric vehicles, reduction in sales tax rate on locally manufactured electric vehicles from 17 percent to one percent, withdrawal of value addition tax on import of electric vehicles and CKD kits and withdrawal of federal excise duty on 4-wheelers electric vehicles.