The Tamil Nadu government has formed a task force that would look into making the state an EV hub. Almost 70 per cent of EV vehicles produced in the country are manufactured from the state. This task force will collaborate extensively with stakeholders to tide over this change smoothly. Thiru Srinivasan, Senior Advisor, EV, FaMe TN, GoTN heads this task force. He pointed to TN moving away from entry level jobs in manufacturing and is looking for more white-collar jobs. “The EV sector offers these jobs,” he pointed and continued that common facilities are being planned across the state to support EV ecosystem. Soon Coimbatore will have a common centre for motors and power train system, Chennai will have a cells and batteries testing centre while Hosur will host a vehicle testing centre. He pointed that the government is in talks with recyclers and a recycling and raw material recovery plant will come up in the state that will not only recycle used batteries but also electrical and rare earth magnets. This would be at a land of about 20 acres and will be up within 6 months. India has two such plants in the North and this upcoming plant will be the largest in the country.
Dr K Senthil Raj, IAS, MD, SIPCOT pointed to a 500-acre land near Hosur that has been allocated as the Future Mobility Park and this will host recycling facilities too. SIPCOT is also in talks to build cafes along with charging points along highways. V Arun Roy, IAS, Secretary, Department of Industries pointed to the report released by iFOREST on just transition from ICE to EV, that it was heartening to note the overall jobs created by EV ecosystem to be more than ICE. He noted that he needed to delve further into the details of the report. The state is equipping itself to become a trillion-dollar economy and Arun Roy pointed to making available an additional 25 GW of power through conventional, renewable and power purchases.
The iFOREST did a detailed study of how auto components industry would be affected. More than 300 enterprises in the clusters of Hosur, Pune and Gurugram participated. While the overall transition is expected to create a positive trend in job creation, an impact on 31 per cent of existing job roles is expected as EVs require more of software and electronic skills than mechanical. In Hosur, around 11 per cent of the auto component manufacturers are expected to be highly impacted by the change while 9 per cent will be moderately impacted and most of these are small and micro enterprises.
