Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said the Indian electric vehicle market will generate 5 crore jobs and by 2030 the market will grow to Rs 20 crore. Almost half of the air pollution was blamed on the transport sector.
Speaking at the 8th Catalyst Conference on Sustainability of E-Vehicle Industry – Evexpo 2024, according to Gadkari, “By 2030, the Indian electric vehicle market potential is Rs 20 crore, creating five crore jobs across the entire EV ecosystem.” The EV finance market is also expected to increase to Rs 4 crore by 2030.
Gadkari said that many problems are being created in the country due to fossil fuels. “We are importing fossil fuel worth Rs 22 crore, which is a big economic challenge. This fossil fuel import is causing a lot of problems in our country,” Gadkari said.
As 44 percent of India's energy basket is solar energy, the government is focusing on green energy. He said that the highest priority will be given to the development of hydropower, especially biomass, followed by solar power and green power.
The minister emphasized on the shortage of electric buses. He said that India needs one lakh electric buses but the capacity is 50,000 buses. He asked the car companies to expand their factories without standards and said that this is the right time for that.
When he took over as the Transport Minister in 2014, the size of India's automobile sector was Rs 7 crore and today it is Rs 22 crore. “Our number is third in the world. We surpassed Japan,” he said. India's automobile sector is the third largest in the world after the US (Rs 78 crore) and China (Rs 47 crore).
He said that India should come first in the next five years. “The future of the industry is good. We have to compete against China in this sector. For that we need good technology and quality, he said.
The minister said that it is important to manufacture lithium ion batteries and companies like Tata, Adani and Maruti are in the process of manufacturing batteries. India has 16,000 EV charging stations, with 2,800 in the pipeline.