Bhavish Aggarwal's Ola Under Govt Lens Over 'Missing Trade Certificates'

Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola Electric has been facing a series of troubles over the past few months, with fresh concerns emerging around its missing trade certificates. The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways on Thursday hauled up the EV giant over the alleged absence of trade certificates, according to a report published by NDTV.

The ministry has issued a show cause notice to Ola and asked it to disclose the details on the number of its currently operating stores and service centres. The report said it also asked for the number of trade certificates obtained in the past three years and the date of issuance of those documents.  

Currently, the ministry wants to know if the EV unicorn has unregistered vehicles stocked at its stores. Ola Electric has also been asked to furnish model- and variant-wise details of the 7,820 electric scooters it claimed to have delivered in February.

Ola's Vehicle Registration Issue

Recently, the e-scooter maker came under latest scrutiny after a mismatch reflected between its claimed February sales and actual registrations. In February 28 filing, Ola reported the sale of more than 25,000 units. However, the vehicle registration tally from the government portal told a different story. As per the data, the portal registered only 8,600 Ola Electric scooters during the same time period.

This gap has caught the government’s attention, as ministries of heavy industries, road transport, and highways have sought information from the company to clarify Ola's sales figures. These queries pertain to the “large gap” in vehicle registration as per the VAHAN portal and sales as per the company’s regulatory filing dated February 28, 2025, for the month of February this year.

To this, the SoftBank-backed firm responded and told the ministry that it included customer bookings for 10,866 third-generation e-scooters as well as 1,395 Roadster X motorcycles in its February sales. The company termed them as “confirmed orders”.

These roadster motorcycles have not been launched in the market so far. And the delivery of its third-gen scooter started in March. Together, these two categories accounted for approximately 50% of the 25,207 February sales figures.

But the government on March 31 wrote a letter to Ola Electric, asking the e-scooter maker to revise the figures and include those vehicles that were invoiced in its February data.