PUNE, (Smart Cities News): The Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) strategy for early adoption of Electric Vehicles (EVs) by creating a readiness plan and establishing an EV fund has propelled Pune city to a spot among ‘50 champion cities’ representing the boldest urban innovations of the past year.
The city has advanced to the final stage of the Global Mayors Challenge 2021, It identified the 50 leading urban innovations that were imagined or launched in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. While at different stages of implementation, these ideas all have the potential for meaningful impact and the ability to spread to other cities. The top 15 cities will win $1 million each as financial assistance to implement their breakthrough ideas and to spread the ideas to other cities around the world.
On Tuesday, the announcement was made by Bloomberg Philanthropies for the competition that takes place once in three years. “Among Indian cities, Pune has some of the highest rates of vehicle ownership, and vehicles contribute nearly 25 percent of particulate pollution in the city. To increase the early adoption of electric vehicles, Pune proposes to prepare a city EV-readiness plan and establish an EV fund that incentivizes use. The idea stands out because Pune is seen as a city at the vanguard of India’s national smart cities push and a hub of innovation. Success in Pune could allow solutions to scale across India and achieve broad impact,” read the statement.
A total of 631 cities from 99 countries submitted their promising ideas for the competition. The selected 50 cities are from 29 countries across six continents. Apart from Pune, the only other Indian city to have made it to the top 50 of the competition is Rourkela. The finalists were chosen based on the four criteria of vision, the potential for impact, feasibility, and transferability.
“The PMC had submitted its plan on building the foundation for an all-electric-vehicle future. We will be preparing an action plan for increasing the use of EVs in the city, with guidelines and instructions on their usage. The city EV fund would use the recommendations from the city EV readiness plan to design a pool of fiscal incentives for vehicles, charging stations, and potentially other related items,” said Mayor Shri Murlidhar Mohol.
He also said that the PMC has set an objective of enabling wide-scale use of EVs in the city. “I am confident the strategy adopted by PMC will be implemented in other cities also. This will help sell more electric vehicles and increase their usage in the city, reducing vehicular pollution. It will also help achieve aims such as cleaner air and more health benefits for citizens.”
The PMC plans to conduct a needs assessment and hold workshops to determine the focus areas of the plan, such as identification of vehicle segments and operational guidelines for the registration process of EV, putting in place charging infrastructure, and conducting awareness campaigns through different mediums.
Shri Murlidhar Mohol said that “Pune is one of the most livable cities in the country and is a hub of education, information technology, and the automobile industry, but its rapid urbanization has increased vehicular pollution, so the civic body is working on promoting the use of EVs in the public transport system.”