Budget Wishlist

By Ola Mobility Institute

India’s new mobility economy market is expected to touch $90 billion by 2030, making it a key driver for India to become a $5 trillion economy. As India marches to become a global hotspot for electric mobility, a critical step in that direction is recognizing battery swapping as a viable charging mechanism for two-wheelers and three-wheelers. This requires policy interventions such as including battery swapping in FAME-II, treating electric vehicles and batteries as separate entities and extending demand incentives for both, reduction of GST on Li-ion batteries and earmarking funds for R&D to develop batteries locally.

Overall, the mobility economy can unlock massive livelihood opportunities for India and easy access to finance will be a critical enabler towards inclusive growth. The Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) trinity can be augmented to usher holistic financial inclusion through utilization of alternative data such as digitized cash flow available with platforms. The government must capitalize this data by: a) Building trust-scores for lending; b) Streamlining KYC norms through uniform tiered KYC and eKYC; c) Extending credit guarantee schemes such as MUDRA to those engaged on digital platforms.

Published at https://www.deccanherald.com on January 26,2019.