Hear from Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog

IIT Guwahati recently organized an interactive session with Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog for its students pursuing MS (Research) in the e-mobility programme. He started the session by congratulating the Director, faculty, and students for starting such a unique course at IIT Guwahati. Talking about technological disruption, shift to electric vehicles, government initiatives for electric motilities, and future goals, he appreciated the launch of the path-breaking initiative by IIT Guwahati. Here is everything you need to know about the session.

Heading towards a zero-emission world

Amitabh Kant stated that India is in the middle of technological disruption and revolution which will down the lane lead to a huge shift from combustion vehicles to electric vehicles. And this shift will gradually result in a shared and connected zero-emission world.

Supporting his clause, Anil Srivastava, Mission Director, NITI Aayog quoted that India is a great user of two and three-wheelers and e-vehicles will make a great opportunity in it. Our country is looking forward to making more energy-efficient batteries at minimal costs.

However, to make this project a success, assessing the market interest will be of utmost priority. It should be kept in mind what materials will be good to undertake the making of the batteries. All the drawn steps should be taken practically on the lines of procurement of sources for the success of e-vehicles.

Initiatives by the Indian government

To give a push towards electric motilities, the Indian government has introduced FAME and FAME 2 schemes. To boost electric mobility and increase the number of electric vehicles in commercial fleets it has also brought down the rate of taxes on electric vehicles at 5 % as compared to higher taxes for other vehicles (28%) and hybrid vehicles (43%). Not only this, it has given tax exemption, up to INR 1 lakh to people who buy electric vehicles.

The CEO of NITI Aayog said that if India has to emerge as a leader in clean, connected and shared mobility there are three important things to keep in mind:

In India, a majority of people are two and three-wheeler users and 80% of people travel in these vehicles
Battery manufacturing and storage will play as a key component
Storage will be given prime focus and will be linked to renewable energy integration with the grid

All about the next-gen programme launched by IIT Guwahati

Prof. T. G. Sitharam, Director, IIT Guwahati claimed that the faculty of IIT Guwahati designed the multi-disciplinary programme much before the National Education Policy 2020 was announced and also brought in industry partnership. In a nutshell, the policy includes the following initiatives:

Every academic department will have at least 3 successful industry advisors who are successful in research and development in the industry
There will be an increase in the internship and externship
Professors of Practice (PoPs) will be appointed at the institute to provide expertise in industrial oriented problems
There will be sessions and seminars by industry experts to make the students aware of the EV technology and foster industrial problem-solving skill in them
There will be more emphasis on project work, and the projects will be executed in collaborations with industry partners
Industry expert lectures, from India, European Union (EU), and Japan will be conducted on topics related to e-mobility such as vehicle design philosophy, light-weighting, and new battery chemistries among others.

All these initiatives are in tandem with the government’s target to achieve 30% of e-mobility by 2030 as during a mobility conference, the Prime Minister of India also stressed on the 7Cs: Common, Connected, Convenient, Congestion free, Charged, Clean, and Cutting-edge technology. And IIT Guwahati’s initiative very well focuses on how India can achieve these objectives.

To stay updated on the recently launched courses, read: