Government's electric drive: Give primacy to public transport, says experts

The government is quite charged up when it comes to its electric mobility plans. CNBC-TV18 exclusively learns that the government is planning to convert all central government and public sector unit car fleets from the current combustion engines to electric powered ones.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Former Transport Secretary Vijay Chhibber, MD & CEO of Shriram Pistons Ashok Taneja and expert in transportation Sudhir Badami shared their readings and outlook on the same.

I would make two suggestions. If the government has to put money into electric mobility, the first priority should be the public transport, which is the city bus. Second suggestion would be that we need to bring all green technologies on an even-footing, said Chibber.

We should be talking about not clean technology but clean environment. Cars will always cause congestion whether it is electric or not therefore noise pollution comes into picture, therefore we must give primacy to public transport, Sudhir Badami added.

The decision of the government to buy large number of electric vehicles will provide a fillip to some of the manufacturers in India, Taneja mentioned.