Davos 2024: No exclusive incentive scheme for Tesla to make in India, says DPIIT Secy

DPIIT Secretary Rajesh Kumar SIngh and Moneycontrol's Chandra R Srikanth at Davos

While the Indian government is in talks with Tesla to attract the electric vehicle maker to set up manufacturing in the country, any incentive mechanisms brought by the government will be applicable for all players in the space, a top official told Moneycontrol at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“This is still at a negotiation stage. And during the course of sensitive negotiations like this, we really can't get ahead of ourselves and start talking about what the final formula will be. As I always say about this issue, whatever incentive mechanisms are put in place by the government will be applicable for all players and not only for any particular company,” said Rajesh Kumar Singh, Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

Indian automakers Mahindra and Tata Motors have asked the Indian officials not to lower import taxes of 100 percent on electric vehicles and protect domestic firms as the government reviews Tesla's plans to enter the market, Reuters reported last month.

Tesla has reportedly proposed setting up an Indian factory but also demanded lower import taxes for electric cars.

With artificial intelligence being the focus of discussions at Davos this year, the DPIIT Secretary said that India's digital public infrastructure enables it to leverage huge volumes of data to train language models and create good use cases for the country.

“We hope that this is going to happen. The indication I have is that the Indian industry's willingness to adopt AI is perhaps one of the foremost in the world. We certainly expect the trend towards AI to be a net positive for the Indian economy and for the manufacturing sector in particular,” he said.

With DPIIT being the nodal agency for the government’s Startup India programme, Singh also said that India is making efforts to ensure that young companies don’t have to flip their corporate headquarters to foreign locations to raise funding.

“Some kind of reverse flipping is beginning to happen. Offshoring of some of our financial transactions through GIFT City is going to help startups to stay in India and raise funds. In addition, in the future, you will have more relaxed listing norms for companies,” he said.

“And as a result, many of these startups in general with a promising revenue stream and a promising idea should be able to raise funds through IPOs as well in the not too distant future,” he added.