India to soon have London-like 'one-nation-one-card' policy for transport

Soon, on the lines of London, Singapore and many other international metropolises, India would have a single card for multiple modes of transport, said Amitabh Kant, CEO Niti Aayog.

India will shortly unveil a ‘One Nation-One Card Policy’ for public transport that will entail connectivity between various modes of transport.

For instance in London, you can buy one card (Oyster card) and can travel on the bus, metro and even suburban trains using that card. 

While the Indian mobility market is expected to see dynamic changes, it is expected that the biggest disruption will play out in the battery storage space, which is expected to be a $300 billion opportunity in the years to come, he said.

The storage battery industry will cater to future demands of the mobility industry and the renewable energy industry as batteries alone can bring in the balancing factor for the infirm power.

As India looks out for possible alternatives, four technology-driven trends - electrification, shared mobility, connectivity and autonomous driving - are leading the automotive industry.

“The focus of our mobility strategy is on sustainable modes of public transport, transport oriented planning, digitisation, among others. The objective of the strategy is to plan for the citizens of India first, rather than focussing on vehicles alone, by providing sustainable mobility and accessibility by switching to a cleaner mode of transportation such as electric, ethanol, methanol, CNG, LNG and hydrogen fuel cells,” Kant said.

“For building a robust mobility ecosystem in the country, it will be important to strike joint venture agreements between the Government and the Industry to build on the infrastructure requirements and to improve the quality of transmission of power of charging stations,” Manoj Kohli, Chairman, CII Task Force on Electric Mobility and Battery Storage and Executive Chairman, SB Energy (SoftBank Group) said.

For India to build a robust mobility ecosystem, it is important to develop automobile manufacturing, manufacturing of storage batteries in India, promoting the mobility change in the app–based aggregators, infrastructure and integration of mobility with renewable energy.