India must take lead in clean mobility, need for crypto regulation: NITI CEO

New Delhi, Dec 13 (UNI) India must take lead in sunrise sectors, such as battery storage, clean mobility, green hydrogen, artificial intelligence (AI) and semi-conductors as they will drive the world going forward, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said.

Delivering Defence Estates Day Lecture, 2021, the NITI Aayog CEO called for tapping growth in sunrise sectors as countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China did, when they grew at very high pace over the 2-3 decades period.

“There are sunrise areas of growth and there will be disruptions in these sectors,” he noted.

Kant emphasized on the need for going all-out in clean mobility and cited the example of American electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla.

He stated that Tesla’s (market) valuation is almost US$ 2.5-3 trillion which is at par with GDP of a country like India. Moreover, valuation of one company making only electric vehicles is more than 11 car companies such as General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Honda.

“The world is at cusp of huge mobility revolution which will be shared, connected and zero emission. This revolution would be driven by huge amount of technological evolutions in the areas of mobility,” said the NITI CEO.

He said that semi-conductors and display manufacturing units are another area which will bring massive growth opportunities.

Kant noted that over the last five years, the domestic production of electronic goods in India has grown at a CAGR of 18 per cent plus and India’s share in global electronics market has tripled in that time.

“Today, every modern Indian has at least 2-3 connected devices — smart phones, laptop, smart TVs, smart watches. But we have become importer of all these products simply because we don’t have strength in semi-conductor,” he said.

“Therefore India needs to become a Champion in these areas. It’s important that there is critical realization that as demand grows in India we must start manufacturing some of these,” he added.

The senior bureaucrat noted that with recent technological disruption, battery storage is great opportunity in sustainable development in the country.

While refusing to comment on the proposed regulatory framework for crypto currencies, the NITI CEO said there should be pro-innovation bias in the regulations.

“There are two issues. One is crypto as a currency and crypto as an asset class etc. All this is subject to great discussion in the government right now and we are all party to that very huge amount of inputs that have been given for policy making. And it is going before the Cabinet so it will not be appropriate for me to comment at this stage,” he said.

“Technology is always ahead of regulation. It will be very important that regulation must keep pace with technology and there must be a pro-innovation bias. If we don’t have pro-innovation bias in a regulatory framework then it will be very difficult for India to move ahead,” he further said.

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