Note4students
Mains Paper 2: Governance | Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:
Prelims level: About the mission
Mains level: Issues related to the (possible) early adoption of the EVs in India.
News
- The Union Cabinet has approved setting up of National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage to drive clean, connected, shared and sustainable mobility initiatives in the country.
- It also approved a Phased Manufacturing Program to support large-scale, export-competitive integrated batteries and cell-manufacturing giga plants in India, to localize production across the electric vehicles value chain.
About the Mission
- It entails creation of a phased manufacturing programme (PMP) valid for five years till 2024 to support setting up of a few large scale, export competitive integrated batteries and cell manufacturing Giga plants in India.
- To implement gigawatt-scale battery manufacturing, a National Storage Mission will initially focus on large-scale module and pack assembly plants during the fiscal year that starts next month, followed by integrated cell manufacturing by 2021-22.
- It will prepare a roadmap for India to leverage its size to produce innovative, competitive multi-modal mobility solutions to be deployed globally.
Why such move?
- India has a significant market potential for batteries and electric vehicles.
- Electric vehicles are creating a big demand and due to this demand, the cost of batteries will further come down.
- IESA estimates the market for energy storage would grow to over 300 GWh during 2018-25.
- It is working with various EV and charging infrastructure companies through its MOVE – Moving Onwards with Vehicle Electrification – initiative to catalyze the adoption, through indigenous manufacturing, of EV components.
- Currently, more than ten companies are engaged in module and li-ion pack assembly in India and we expect four to five large companies to enter cell manufacturing in the next two to three years.
- With appropriate policy support through this mission, Indian companies will be able to diversify into energy storage business.
Terms of reference
- The programme will provide a plan which will send a clear signal to the industry to make the necessary investments in capacity to localize the value chain.
- The creation of a PMP would localize production along the entire electric vehicles value chain.
- The mission will have an inter-ministerial steering committee chaired by Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.
- The mission will also coordinate with key stakeholders in ministries/ departments and states to integrate various initiatives to transform mobility in India.