‘Mobility Is The New Disruptor, And Evs Are The Future'

In the run-up to FAME II, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar, in a conversation with BW Businessworld’s Suman K. Jha, asserts that electric vehicles are the future, and that the industry and the government should work together to make it happen. 

- Suman K. Jha

Do you thinks electric vehicles (EVs) are the future?

Absolutely. One should be talking about the new model of mobility, which is shared mobility, connected mobility and mobility driven by intermodal mobility which makes maximum use of digital communications, GPS and so on. There are basically three objectives, i.e. to minimise carbon footprint, to maximise public welfare and ease of living, and to generate maximum jobs and growth. Just like the Internet and the chip before that, I think mobility is in that genre of disruption. We should not focus on personal or individual mobility in the EV space, but more on public transport.

You have already suggested that 40 per cent of personal and public transport should have zero emission by 2030? Do you think that is possible?

Yes, but it will not happen by itself. We have to make maximum efforts for it. The government and industry must work closely together to make it happen.

Do you think public transport should be accorded priority while going for electric mobility?

Yes, absolutely. Public transport means not just buses but also three-wheelers and smaller vans. It also includes railways and waterways. We have this great opportunity to try and move away from the US model of mobility, which is the personal transport model — there are 786 cars per 1,000 families in the US while we have 18 or 20 cars per 1,000 families. Here is our chance to move away from that model so that we can propagate among people not to own a vehicle but to own a ride. We have to make the public ride as comfortable, or even more comfortable than a personal ride.

In the personal transport space, don’t you think two-wheelers should also be promoted?