Telangana all charged up about giga-scale li-ion battery plant.

Telangana Chief Secretary SK Joshi has reiterated the State government’s commitment and readiness to establish a giga-scale li-ion (lithium-ion) battery manufacturing plant in the State.

During a video conference, conducted recently by Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog, the Chief Secretary highlighted why Telangana is ideally suited to host a 5 GWh capacity battery manufacturing plant as envisioned by the Centre.

Joshi explained that Telangana has a readily available land bank of 200 acres close to the airport and the Outer Ring Road and is ready to supply power and water at a discount. The State will also provide access to a skilled workforce.

The Central government recently set up a National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Smart Storage comprising an Inter-ministerial Steering Committee of Secretaries headed by the CEO of NITI Aayog.

The Telangana government believes it meets all the criteria for selection, including a single-window mechanism under the Telangana State Industrial Project Approval and Self-Certification System, encumbrance-free land, trunk infrastructure, and access to adequate utilities at attractive rates, including subsidies and incentives to ancillary units.

Telangana has a proactive and business-friendly electronics manufacturing policy and hosts the country’s largest electronic manufacturing cluster close to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, he said. Kant congratulated Joshi on his expression of interest to host the giga-scale battery manufacturing plant, and said around five States would be chosen for the initiative.

He also said that States should create demand in line with the Central government’s mandate of converting all three-wheelers in India to electric vehicles by 2023 and converting all two-wheelers to electric vehicles by 2025. The incentives should include soft loans to State Discoms, rooftop installations and microgrids, he added.

HBL