The Global Mobility Summit, which came to an end on Saturday (September 8), raised more questions about how we are going to attain the goal of transformative mobility, said Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog.

Speaking the valedictory session of the summit here, Kumar asked, “If we take the ultimate objective of mobility in India is to have electric vehicle driven by renewable, can we put a date to it, say by 2047 the 100thyear of Independence?”

To make that happen, it is a congregated effort from private, public and the government. In addition, there are policy and implementation challenge that the government should tackle. Transformative mobility requires an integrated mobility policy. India as a country should think about which way to adopt to achieve the mobility be it fully electric or hybrid and make policy changes to reflect that.

“Another question is what is going to be the charging strategy?” Kumar asked. Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, in his speech on ‘Sustainable Mobility’ said that they would build 10,000 CNG stations within a decade and are working in challenges concerning infrastructure for EVs by putting comprehensive policy for the same.

One should also take into account the public transport system such as the buses and understand what kind of technology is needed to do that.

While the whole discussion is heading towards EVs and alternative fuels, the government should also encourage non-motorised transport and opting for public transport.

Public transport in India is not lucrative enough and should be made attractive by offering seamless connectivity. Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister, Maharashtra, said in his speech about ‘Strategy for shared, connected and seamless Mobility’, said, “Efficient and fast roads is the need of the hour.” To achieve this, the Maharashtra government has planned 250 km of metro network. “We are increasing the capacity by 2.5 times in Mumbai and that too end to end,” he said.

Fadnavis said that they are also exploring various technologies such as hyperloop to transform mobility to curb pollution.

“How do we integrate mobility with urban planning, especially with older cities such as Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai?” Kumar asked. Unlike the West, private ownership is not affordable for India and neither does it have the resources. Kumar said that government and private must work together and “it will be critical going forward,” he added.

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