APRIL 4, 2025: On Day 1 of Startup Mahakumbh, as visitors entered the pavilion, they were awestruck by Moonrider’s electric tractor and Sarla Aviation’s flying taxi. Alongside that, the Mobility Pavilion unveiled game changing solutions, discussions and intentions for the future of mobility in India.
The day commenced with a fireside chat, Driven to Progress: The Importance of Mobility for Viksit Bharat. Moderated by Kunal Khattar, Partner, AdvantEdge Founders, it featured Vineet Aggarwal, Managing Director, Transport Corporation of India, who offered interesting insights on logistics and its importance in solving everything from last-mile delivery to intercity logistics.
Speaking about the opportunities for Indian companies to build capabilities from a global logistics point of view, Vineet Aggarwal explained, “If Indian companies have to expand, first, you develop your market here. You push the market here, grow the market here, and then start looking overseas based on how your clients are looking at it.”
An engaging panel discussion was also held, titled Viksit Bharat: Driving Investments to Accelerate Electrification across Auto, Logistics and Shared Mobility. This session was attended by Chirantan Patnaik, Director, British International Investment (BII), Aishwarya Kacchal, Senior Consultant, World Bank, Sanjay Sharma, Chief General Manager of Head Startup, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Arpit Agarwal, Investment Partner, Bloom, and Sandeep Agarwal, Founder, Droom. It was moderated by Kunal Khattar, Partner, AdvantEdge Founders.
During the discussion, insights were offered on the rapid evolution of the mobility and logistics landscapes in India, highlighting major trends like multimodal transport, digitization, and alternative fuel adoption. Chirantan Patnaik highlighted the $350M+ investments in India’s EV logistics sector, emphasizing climate impact and income upliftment for gig workers. Meanwhile, Sandeep Agarwal flagged residual value uncertainty and financing hurdles for used EVs. He also stressed the need for standardized battery health data and predicted online dominance in used EV sales.
When asked how India’s EV transition compares globally, speaking at the panel, Aishwarya Kacchal said, “India dominates 2W/3Ws (80% global share with China) and leads in e-buses (~9,000 deployed). Policy ambition (30% EVs by 2030) and innovation stand out. Gaps: commercial vehicles and battery recycling. DFIs enable bankability – e.g., payment security mechanisms for e-buses.”
The panelists also identified high capital costs, fragmented financing, and supply-chain gaps as critical barriers, and called for passenger EV startups, tractor electrification, and circular economy solutions to unlock India’s $206B EV market by 2030.
A key highlight of the day was a panel on Powering the Future: The Importance of Integrated Manufacturing and Policy Incentives in EV Innovation. This panel was attended by Parminder Singh, Head, Design & Manufacturing, Media & Entertainment, India & SAARC at Autodesk, Wybren van der Vaart, Co-founder & CEO, BRIGHTBLU, Shri Ishtiyaque Ahmed, Program Director, NITI AAYOG, Rajesh Gaonkar, Founder & CEO, Sarla Aviation, Anoop Srikantaswamy, Founder, Moonrider. The panel was moderated by Swapna Gupta, Partner, Avaana Capital.
Shri Ishtiyaque Ahmed emphasized the government’s commitment to EV adoption. “There is urgency of the climate action. The temperatures are rising and there are extreme weather conditions. There is a significant responsibility on India with regard to reduction of the greenhouse gas emission also now when it comes to the transport sector. Transport sector contributes around 14% of the total carbon emission. As far as government of India’s vision is concerned, we have already committed that we would be net zero by 2070. As far as EV penetration is concerned, we are planning around 30% of the EV penetration by 2030. If you look at the figures of 2025 we have sold around 2 million EV units in the country. So EVs are very, very important.”