About the Forum Convening

The regional convening was organised by Vasudha Foundation with support from SED Fund on April 18, 2023, in Chennai with an objective to deep dive into two sub-sectors – road transport and cooking through deep electrification pathways.

The desired outcome of this regional Forum convening was to build the discourse around the challenges, local aspects and prospects prevailing in India’s electric vehicle and electric cooking ecosystem. Especially focusing on innovative and bottom-up approaches to electrifying India’s end-uses.

The main highlights of the Forum convening were:

• Inaugural Addresses: Focused on the importance of holding such a Forum across India, the role of state governments, and stakeholder collaborations to achieve government and industry emission reduction targets through deep electrification pathways.
• Panel Discussion on Road Transport Sector: Emphasized the need for charging infrastructure, battery recycling, electrification of public transport, and addressing behavioural challenges for successful electrification of the road transport sector.
• Presentations, Fireside Chat, and Panel Discussion on Electric Cooking: Included presentations on electric cooking work done by Finovista and GIZ in India, a fireside chat with SEWA to understand grassroots women-led challenges and opportunities in electric cooking, and a panel discussion on strategies for scaling up the adoption of electric cooking solutions in India.

Summing up and the Way Forward

The discussions on electrification of the road transport sector and clean cooking helped the organisers and the participants identify critical sectoral and regional aspects that need to be addressed to achieve the sectoral aspirations.

In May 2023, regional convenings would be held in Pune to discuss sustainable transport pathways through deep electrification and in Lucknow to deliberate electric cooking adoption and uptake. Further details will be shared in the upcoming weeks.