RMI India launch ‘Shoonya’ Campaign

WHY IN THE NEWS?

NITI Aayog, in association with the RMI and RMI India, launched Shoonya campaign.

About:

• Shoonya campaign is an initiative to work with consumers and industry in order to promote pollution-free delivery vehicles.
• This campaign was launched with the aim of accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in urban delivery segment and raise consumer awareness regarding the benefits of pollution-free delivery.
• Industry stakeholders like e-commerce companies, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), fleet aggregators and logistics companies are expanding their efforts on electrifying last mile deliveries.
• In the initial phase, about 30 companies like Tata Motors, Mahindra Electric, Ashok Leyland, Zomato, Sun Mobility, Lightning Logistics, Big Basket, Brudart, Swiggy and Hero Electric attended a kick-off meeting that was chaired by CEO of NITI Aayog, Amitabh Kant.

Branding and certification programme

Under the campaign, a corporate branding and certification program has been launched in order to recognize and facilitate industry’s efforts of shifting towards EVs for final mileage delivery. Online tracking platform shares the impact of this campaign by providing data like kilometers of electrified vehicles, standard pollutant savings, carbon savings and other benefits from clean delivery vehicles.

Main Purpose of the campaign

The main purpose of the campaign is to eliminate pollution from urban freight sector. For this purpose, e-commerce companies, automakers, and logistics fleet operators have been asked to recognize the opportunity.

Urban freight vehicles in India

Urban freight vehicles account for 10% of India’s freight-related CO2 emissions. These emissions are expected to rise by 114% by 2030. Since EVs do not emit such emissions, they can contribute in improving air quality. They also emit 15-40 percent less CO2 as far as its manufacturing is concerned. Their operating costs is also low as compared to their internal combustion engine counterparts.