Stressing on the Government’s focus towards urban mobility, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant has said that India needs to cut down on oil imports and switch the transport system from internal combustion to electric as 14 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in this country. He stated India needs to convert these two-and-three-wheelers into electric vehicles, ensure cleaner fuel for public transport and push sharing-based transport system in place of private cars.
Kant stated India is slightly different from the rest of the world because around 76 percent of the vehicles are two-wheelers which consume 60 percent of fuel. They emit 30 percent of total pollution. He further added that of the remaining share, 3 percent is three-wheelers, 7-8 percent is public transport and rest is four-wheelers, which constitute the most pollution.
Besides, he underlined that the transition towards urban mobility will be done through Centre’s ‘Make in India’ initiative to set up manufacturing units in India. He highlighted ‘Unlike America and Europe which have 950 cars and 880 cars per 1000 people respectively, India has only 20 (cars) per 1000... So, there is huge difference in level which we can easily transfer to electric.’ He further added that ‘We need to ensure that Make in India takes place with motors, compressors, batteries, etc being manufactured in India.’