India losing out ₹20,000 crore e-cycle export opportunity: Pankaj Munjal

India is losing out on a huge opportunity to build a ₹20,000 crore electric bicycle export market here, says Pankaj M Munjal, Chairman and MD, HMC Group, which manufactures Hero cycles. The demand for e-bicycle is booming in Europe, and they prefer Indian bicycles over Chinese. Munjal wants the central government to extend the benefits of EV policy to e-bicycles also. If the government supports the manufacturers by giving the benefits of FAME-II and production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, the cost of e-bicycles will come down by 30%, and it will help the manufacturers to competitively position themselves in the European market, he says. HMC group targets to achieve sales of ₹1,000 crore from e-bicycle business by 2023-24. It will become 15% of the overall sales by then, compared to 3% now.