Nitin Gadkari: Driverless Cars Won’t Be Allowed On Indian Roads

The Union Transport Minister, Nitin Gadkari, expressed his apprehensions over driverless cars to a gathering of reporters at his residence in the national capital. Addressing the gathering, Gadkari asked, "How can we allow such vehicles when we already have huge number of unemployed people?" He pointed out how there was already an annual shortage of about 22,000 trained drivers in India, further affirming his concern. Unemployment seemed to be the government’s top priority and addressing the same, the minister hinted at coming out with an application to rival cab aggregators like Ola and Uber.

In a time where carmakers and tech giants like Volvo, Tesla, Google, Audi and Apple are warming up to driverless tech, Gadkari said that the country might not be able to ignore it some years down the line. However, he insisted India isn’t prepared for it right now. The minister also said the government would welcome international manufacturers to produce electric vehicles in the country but wouldn’t offer any exemption on import duties for such vehicles. “I have told the manufacturers that they can come and manufacture here. There is no question of tax relief,” he said.

In an attempt to curb the menace of pollution, the Maharashtra government had recently announced a waiver on taxes and registration charges for EVs in the state. In accordance with the same, Ola added 100 Mahindra e2o Plus to its fleet in Nagpur, among other electric vehicles sourced from TVS, BYD, Kinetic and Tata Motors. 

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