India just became one of the very few nations in the world to make a serious commitment to reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. India aims to become one of the world's only completely electric-vehicle nation by 2030! "India can become the first country of its size which will run 100 percent of electric vehicles. We are trying to make this programme self-financing. "We don't need one rupee support from the government. We don't need one rupee investment from the people of India," Power Minister Piyush Goyal said at an event organised by CII Young India.

How will it work?

This will come at no extra cost to the government or to us by means of taxes. "We are working (on the scheme). Can we actually give electric cars for free (zero down payment) and people can pay for that out of the savings on the petroleum products. Innovation is possible, it just needs an open mind. You need to think of scale and be honest," Goyal said.

In a bid to implement this, the government has set up a working group under Road Minister Nitin Gadkari, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar. The board will be meeting in the first week of April and will also explore how the prices of electricity used for charging the cars can be reduced.

"We are thinking of scale. We are thinking of leading the world rather than following the world. India will be the first large country in the world to think of that scale," he said.

We can get on board for that!