Telangana State can set up giga-scale Li-ion battery plant

Hyderabad: The Telangana government on Friday informed the NITI Aayog that it is capable of setting a giga-scale Li-ion battery manufacturing plant as envisioned by the Centre, Chief Secretary S K Joshi said.

NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Friday held a video conference with chief secretaries of all states on the importance of transformative mobility and smart storage and the Centres proposal of setting up a giga-scale Li-ion battery manufacturing plant, Joshi said.

The Chief Secretary of Telangana reiterated the commitment and readiness of the state to establish the plant and informed the NITI Aayog that Telangana is ideally suited for hosting 5GWh capacity battery manufacturing plant as envisioned by the Centre. This is too early stage to give details, he added.

The NITI Aayog gave the outline of the scheme (project). If anything is there, we are well-equipped to handle those things (battery manufacturing plant). We have informed him that Telangana is well-placed for setting up the plant, Joshi said.

Telangana has readily available land bank of 200 acres close to the airport and outer ring road, with ready to supply power and water at discount, with access to skilled workforce, an official press release said.

The Government of India has recently set up the National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Smart Storage comprising an inter-ministerial steering committee of secretaries headed by the CEO of NITI Aayog.

Telangana qualifies for all the criteria for selection including single-window mechanism under TS-iPASS (Telangana Industrial Policy), encumbrance-free land, trunk infrastructure, access to adequate utilities at rational rates, including subsidies and incentives to ancillary units, Joshi said.