‘Shifting to adoption of EVs big focus of Karnataka govt’

Bengaluru: Shifting to adoption of Electric Vehicles is the big focus of the Karnataka government, with emphasis on last mile delivery, logistics and commute space, Deputy Chief Minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan said on Tuesday.

He was speaking as a panelist at a virtual meet on ‘Governing Goods on the Move’, organised by the World Economic Forum as part of the Global Technology Governance Summit- 2021.

The Minister said the shift to electric vehicle mobility has become necessary now more than ever due to fast depletion of fossil fuels, increase in energy costs, the impact of transportation on the environment and digital intervention.

He pointed out that industry, governments and early adopters have succeeded in demonstrating that EVs can deliver the practicality, sustainability, safety and affordability characteristics expected from them.

”Mobile internet, automation, the internet of things, cloud computing, advanced genomics, renewable energy are some areas of innovation and technology that need to be adopted to bring about changes in ways of traditional systems of functioning,” Narayan said.

He said the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has developed a ‘Smart Factory’ called 4.0 India@IISc.

He said the government has partnered with the World Economic Forum to launch the ‘Centre for Internet of Ethical Things’,aimed at being a sandbox for new emerging technologies and their applications and which would bring together multi- stakeholders.

Andr Andonian, Chairman, McKinsey & Company, Yoshifumi Kato, Chief Technology Officer, Denso and Mariam Al-Foudery, Group Chief Marketing Officer, Agility were the other panelists.