SIAM Convention and the Moment of Validation: India’s Transportation Future Is Arriving — I Wrote About This Years Ago

When I listened to PM Modi at the SIAM Convention — asserting that India is moving rapidly towards a future-ready transportation ecosystem — I felt something between quiet satisfaction and renewed urgency. It is one thing to say a vision; it is another to see policies, industry commitments, and infrastructure investments converge into tangible momentum. This is the inflection point we’ve been waiting for.

What struck me at the SIAM conversation

We are no longer speaking only about aspirational targets. The language at SIAM — electrification at scale, battery manufacturing, charging networks, logistics digitization, green fuels, and vehicle data standards — is operational. That shift from idea to implementation matters. It means we are building the plumbing that turns a policy speech into daily reality for millions of commuters, drivers, manufacturers, mechanics and small businesses.

The pieces coming together that I hear echoed in that address are familiar to anyone who has been watching India’s tech + manufacturing trajectory:

• Rapid scaling of electric vehicles and public transport electrification.
• Investment in battery value chains and domestic assembly/manufacturing.
• A nascent charging and grid-integration strategy (including renewables).
• A data-led approach to traffic, operations and predictive maintenance — where mobility becomes software-driven.
• An industrial push to make critical components locally, lowering import dependence.

Those are the building blocks of a future-ready mobility ecosystem — but they also expose the deeper systemic issues we must get right.

Why this feels familiar: I wrote about these building blocks before

It’s worth pausing to note something personal: many of these themes are not new to me. Over the last few years I wrote about the importance of a national data governance center to harness public datasets and drive evidence-based services (Overwhelming number of schemes…). I urged that India must build its own AI capabilities and fold those into national priorities (Our Own AI Systems: On the Way). And I have long argued for structural incentives to accelerate digital payments and domestic saving — ideas that intersect with how we finance clean mobility for citizens (see my pieces on Jan Dhan Sarjan and model manifesto proposals) (Simple Summary of Sankalp / Model Manifesto, Model Manifesto / Jan Dhan ideas).

The core idea I want to convey is this — take a moment to notice that I had brought up these thoughts years ago: predicting this outcome, proposing practical building blocks, and flagging the policy and data needs. Seeing events unfold now feels validating, and it sharpens my sense that those earlier ideas deserve a second look because they remain relevant today.

The convergence: technology, manufacturing, data and finance

A robust transportation ecosystem needs more than vehicles and stations. It requires:

• Domestic manufacturing capacity across the value chain: chips, power electronics, battery cells, motors, and thermal management. This reduces risk and creates jobs.
• Digital infrastructure: traffic and usage telemetry, standard APIs for vehicle/charger interoperability, and anonymized datasets for planners. The national data repository I suggested can be the backbone for safe, shared access to mobility data (Overwhelming number of schemes…).
• AI and operational software at scale: demand forecasting, route optimization, battery health prediction — all require local AI capability and models hardened for Indian conditions (Our Own AI Systems: On the Way).
• Financing and incentives that change behaviour: subsidies, tax policy, or innovative mechanisms to nudge rapid adoption — I’ve written about mechanisms that create broad-based savings and promote digital transactions, which are relevant if we ask how citizens will pay for clean mobility and how governments can sustainably subsidize transitions (see my Jan Dhan Sarjan / GST-linked ideas) (Model Manifesto / Jan Dhan ideas).
• An MSME and start-up ecosystem plugged into manufacturing and services: small-scale suppliers, logistics providers and technology startups must be enabled to participate in this transition — something I also argued is crucial for export and jobs growth (That is peanuts compared to potential).

If one part of this chain is weak — say batteries or data access — the whole system loses efficiency. That’s why SIAM’s emphasis on a broad ecosystem (not just vehicle sales) is important.

Hard trade-offs and the fiscal reality

I’m realistic. Creating a future-ready mobility ecosystem costs money: manufacturing incentives, charging infrastructure, grid upgrades, and worker reskilling. These are legitimate fiscal questions. Years ago I suggested ways to make redistributive policies more transparent and fiscally responsible (manifesto / Form A & B thinking), because grand promises must be matched by credible financing plans (Model Manifesto / Form A/B reflections).

Policy must answer simple questions:

• Who pays in the short run, and who benefits in the long run?
• How do we avoid captive import dependence for critical components?
• How do we mobilize domestic capital without crowding out other development needs?

Those are difficult but necessary conversations. SIAM’s industry voice and the government’s targets make those conversations possible in the public square.

A few practical priorities I keep coming back to

• Build a secure, governed mobility data layer that allows planners and innovators to access anonymized traffic, ridership and grid data under clear rules (Overwhelming number of schemes…).
• Accelerate localized R&D and manufacturing of batteries, power electronics and semiconductors — coupling incentives with technology transfer and skilling (Our Own AI Systems: On the Way).
• Design financing mechanisms that reward digital transactions and long-term saving (my Jan Dhan Sarjan ideas attempted to link tax/incentive policy with digital adoption and social security creation) (Model Manifesto / Jan Dhan ideas).
• Create clear standards and testing labs for EVs, batteries and charging networks so consumers and investors have confidence — standards are infrastructure too.
• Support MSMEs to climb the value chain: from component suppliers to exports, not just assembly. India’s jobs story depends on it (That is peanuts compared to potential).

Why this matters beyond vehicles

The transportation revolution reshapes cities, jobs and the climate trajectory. It touches health (pollution), equity (affordable mobility), and economic resilience (local manufacturing). When I urged building data governance, AI capability and local manufacturing in previous posts, it was because mobility is where those levers make the most immediate difference.

So hearing the government and industry speak about system-level change — at SIAM and elsewhere — is more than a policy update. It’s the moment those earlier threads begin to weave into a fabric that will define how Indians move, work and live for decades.

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Regards,
Hemen Parekh