Sun is India’s biggest asset, solar energy should be fully utilized for running EVs and factories: Niti Aayog CEO
Ahmedabad: Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Saturday said that the Sun was India’s biggest asset and solar energy should be fully utilized in states like Gujarat for cleaner Electric vehicle (EV) as well as big manufacturing units.
Addressing a joint conference on Sustainable Mobility: ‘A New Era of E-Mobility’ organized by Dholera Special Investment Region Development Authority (DSIRDA), Government of Gujarat in collaboration with Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corp (DMICDC) and CII, here Kant in his video conference based key-note address said, ‘Today’s conference is very significant because India’s urban population will nearly double in next decade. We need new cities otherwise we will live in unplanned urbanisation. Dholera is a unique example of planned sustainable urbanisation.’
He further added that travel within and between the cities will grow exponentially. The rapid growth poses several social economic and environmental challenges. Our emphasis must be on shared, connected and electric transportation solutions and it will deliver a host of environmental benefits including cleaner air so that Indian citizens can breathe more easily.
‘Our objective is that we must clean up our cities, we must reduce our import of oils, the biggest asset India has is its sun and we must utilise this resource particularly in the State of Gujarat which has the finest resource of sun and its energy for driving electric vehicle as well giga manufacturing factories and I am sure Dholera will be the front leader and will be the key catalyst and will drive change and reform as far as electric mobility is concerned,’ he said.
‘Across the world, electric vehicles (EV) are proliferating globally at a rapid pace due to decarbonisation policies and the push in improving EV costs for customers. India too is fast entering the league of nations that are encouraging the development of the EV industry by offering a thriving regulatory environment. The recent Union Budget promised a host of incentives for EVs and NITI Aayog, the government’s think-tank, is at the forefront stewarding India’s transition to a cleaner and zero-emission form of transportation,’ he added.
In his address through video conference the additional secretary of the Aayog RK Gupta said that the government was preparing a policy with regard to production of batteries in the country and was ensuring that in case of electric vehicles the situation with regard to fuel of the internal combustion engines was not repeated, ‘We import 85% of our diesel and 50% of the gas and we don’t want this situation to continue when we switch to battery fitted electric vehicle,’ he said.
The conference was attended among others by Dr. J N Singh, IAS, Chief Secretary, Govt of Gujarat who also announced that Dholera SIR to take the lead in promotion of sustainable mobility and bring EV revolution to India.
Dholera SIR is India’s and one of the largest greenfield smart city and industrial corridor project being built by Government of Gujarat and Central govt. It is ready with the state-of-the-art ICT enabled infrastructure to establish a whole value chain of electric vehicles manufacturing and battery manufacturing. Dholera can accommodate the battery component manufactures, battery pack manufacturers as well as EV manufacturers.
The conference focused on two specific areas including Future of Electric Vehicles in India and Scope for New Age Industries in EV and Ancillaries. Arvind Agrawal, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary, Finance, Gujarat, Alkesh Kumar Sharma, IAS, CEO & MD, DMICDC, Jai Prakash Shivahare, IAS, MD, Dholera Industrial City Development Ltd, Shri Raju Shah, Chairman, CII, Gujarat State Council, Jinal Mehta, MD, Torrent Group, Rino Raj, CEO – Energy & Battery Business, Tata Chemicals Ltd, Kamal Bali, President & Managing Director, VOLVO Group India, and Atul Arya, Head – Energy Systems Division – India and SE Asia Panasonic Corporation were also present.
Source: UNI
