India must learn from its past mistakes made in the fields of electronics manufacturing and not repeat them in the field of electric mobility, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Niti Aayog, Amitabh Kant said on Friday.
Addressing a roundtable to promote electric mobility,organised by the ministry of heavy industries, currently underway in Goa, Amitabh Kant said that making India a global leader in electric vehicle manufacturing will help India move to sunrise sector industries.
“Those countries that go digital and go green will attract valuation and attract investment and those that do not go green and digital will go dead. There will be no future for those countries. This disruption is absolutely clear. This writing is on the wall that by 2025 there will be no combustion 2-3 wheelers left,” Kant said.
“In the last 70 years India has always been getting into the sunset areas of industry. And by the time you get into the sunset areas of industry it is too late. By that time the Chinese and other countries have already taken the market and they have the size and scale. And once they have the size and scale you’ll never be able to penetrate global markets. Therefore we are saying that you get into the sunrise areas of the future and these are the areas if you get in you will become a global champion,” he said.
“One of the lessons we learnt was, that in mobile phones, the market grew in India but we became import dependent. What we learned in solar [is that] the market grew in India but we became import dependent. Let us not make that mistake in the world of [electric] mobility. We must make India the centre of manufacturing both for the Indian market and for the rest of the world. And that is now dependent on all of you to make the states of India the centre of manufacturing,” he said.
“Our vision is battery storage, green hydrogen and renewables. And we are not talking about India. We are talking about making India the biggest player in the world. India must become the biggest manufacturer of battery storage, of green hydrogen, the biggest exporter of green hydrogen, the biggest exporter of battery storage. Must become the centre of compact car manufacturing, the biggest manufacturer of two wheelers, three wheelers, four wheelers of green vehicles. So you are looking at the world as a market. Don’t look at India. Look at the world as your market,” he told the gathering that included state transport ministers from most states as well as representatives of private industry.
He added that India must become a centre for the world which was going through “disruption” and bring in new technology or and go green if didn’t want to loose out .
The roundtable is being organized to bring together all stakeholders including the Centre, states and UTs, leaders of the auto and automotive parts industries, start-ups and technical experts and it aims to work out strategies to promote adoption of electric vehicles in India and attract investment in manufacturing of EVs, batteries and high technology automotive components.
Source: hindustantimes.com
