Telangana government moots Mobility Valley, hopes to attract Rs 50,000 crore investment

With an aim to accelerate the growth of sustainable mobility in the country, the Telangana government unveiled what it calls India's first mobility-focused cluster, called Telangana Mobility Valley or TMV where it plans to attract investments of over Rs 50,000 crore and create over four lakh jobs over the next five years. 

Sharing details of the TMV, KT Rama Rao, Minister for Industries and Commerce, IT E&C, Municipal Administration and Urban Development said, “Telangana Mobility Valley will create best-in-class infrastructure making Telangana the most competitive destination for both manufacturing and electric research and development (R&D) in India.”

Rao was speaking at the first edition of Mobility Next Hyderabad Summit – part of the Hyderabad E-Mobility Week. 

According to the government, TMV will help enterprises in all segments of sustainable mobility, including electric two-wheelers, three-wheelers, four-wheelers, advanced cell chemistry and hydrogen fuel cells, as well as Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers and auto engineering and R&D firms. 

“Further, investments aggregating Rs 3,000+ crore are in advanced stages and will be announced in the next two weeks," Rao said. “These investments will strengthen the Electric 3-wheeler, Electric 2-wheeler and charging equipment manufacturing ecosystem in Telangana, " he added.

The State is developing four mega clusters in and around Hyderabad — an EV Manufacturing cluster in Zaheerabad, an EV Manufacturing cluster in Seetharampur, Energy storage system (ESS) cluster in Divitipally and Innovation cluster at Yenkathala. 

“Each cluster will be equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure to reduce the cost of operations for their tenant,” the Minister said.

The summit saw participation from government, academia and industry executives including Kamal Bali, President and MD, Volvo Group India, Nikolaus Lang, Senior Partner and MD, Global Leader- Global Advantage Practice, BCG, Prabhjeet Singh, President, Uber India and South Asia, Shrikant Sinha, CEO, Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge — TASK, Suman Mishra, CEO, Mahindra Last Mile Mobility Division, Dirk Adamczyk, SVP, Engineering Solutions ZF Friedrichshafen AG, Mamatha Chamarthi, SVP Business and Product Management, Stellantis, and Dr. Amaresh Chakrabarti, Chair, Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing, Indian Institute of Science, among others.  

Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Information Technology, Electronics and Communications, and Industries and Commerce Departments, Telangana represented the government.

During the event, the Telangana government announced three Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) — ATS-TUV Rheinland MoU with Telangana Government; Bosch Global Software Technologies MoU with BITS Hyderabad and Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge's (TASK) MoU with Shell. 

Collaboration remains the key
Skoda Auto Volkswagen Group which has brought in fresh investments in the recent years has expressed its intent of bringing in more zero emission products. The Group has brought in half a dozen EVs in India already and there are more models in the offing in the future. 

Talking about the future of sustainable mobility, Christian Cahn von Seelen, Executive Director, Sales, Marketing and Digital, Volkswagen Group India, said, “Sustainable mobility is achievable through the right cooperation between all stakeholders, including the supportive government policies in India. The G20 presidency of India offers a huge opportunity and there is a strong drive from various industries to address the challenges of climate change. With hard work and dedication, we can remain optimistic and see the realization of sustainable mobility in the future.”

Kamal Bali, President and MD, Volvo Group India stated that the issue of e-mobility should be seen in the context of emission reduction, congestion and safety aspects. “It should be decoupled with EV growth,” he added, before emphasising that this will help in reducing over $100 billion foreign exchange which India spends on petroleum imports. “We should move from an era of competition to an era of collaboration. (The issue) cannot be addressed by working in silos,” he said.  

Volvo Group has electric buses through its joint venture with Eicher Motors and it plans to build its portfolio further in the future.

The transition to EVs cannot happen without a strong participation of component makers. And there has to be a stronger cohesion between the two as the market pivots to EVs. 

Hizmy Hassen, Chief Digital and Supply Chain Officer of Apollo Tyres said, “As an industry we can have a common operating chain system towards sustainability, reduce congestion and make safety a top priority". Hassen added that the use of tools such as Internet of things (IoT) and machine learning (ML) has helped the company in reducing its emissions by at least five percent cumulatively, which is equal to reduction of roughly 2,250 cars in India.