Venkaiah stresses need of shared mobility, electric vehicles

New Delhi: Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday stressed on the need of adopting shared mobility and electric vehicles to meet increasing demands of transportation and said standalone metro systems are not effective as they require a holistic approach.

Delivering a keynote address at the launch of 'Electric Mobility Forum' of research organisation WRI India, Naidu also suggested for a comprehensive mobility plan to meet the need of cities for a period of 30-40 years. "Standalone metro systems are not effective and need a holistic approach. Globally, the mobility sector is acquiring new paradigms. Shared mobility, electric vehicles, bicycles, connected vehicles are taking the centre stage and India must also follow the same," he said.

The forum, launched by the vice-president, is aimed at revolutionising electric mobility in the country and accelerate the transition towards clean electric vehicles. Naidu, citing figures, said it took 70 years to build 60,000 petrol pumps in the country and viewed that building the ecosystem for electric vehicles will take time as around five lakh charging stations will be needed to power the clean vehicles. He termed climate change as the biggest challenge facing the earth, saying the best way to face it is to be friendly with the nature and live in harmony with it.

"As we brace ourselves to cope with this challenge of climate change, we will have to marshal all our intelligence, knowledge, science and understanding of nature to do that," Naidu said. The air quality has been a matter of concern and every winter several parts of the country face ambient air quality that is extremely poor.

This cannot be allowed to go on, he said. "We need to systematically identify the sources of the problem and deal with them. Otherwise this will adversely impact the health and well-being of city residents, especially our children," he said.

Naidu also focused on the need of educating people and creating infrastructure for meeting the goals of providing adequate transportation facilities to the people, while tackling the issue of pollution. "You have to educate people about the dangers of climate change, and create awareness about taking care of our surroundings," he said while advocating move from private to public transport.