pune union minister of heavy industries mahendra nath pandey said on saturday that the centre was monitoring semiconductor chip shortage situation thats affecting the auto industry and was working towards a solutionpandey called for more innovation in the electric vehicles segment including in reduction of charging times there are 102 items included in the productlinked incentive pli scheme for the auto sector we will add more if needed in consultation with industry players we are closely working on the semiconductor chip shortage issue pandey saidpandey was addressing the press after speaking at an industry conclave in pune organized by the automotive research association of india arai society of indian automobile manufacturers siam and the automotive component manufacturers of india acma pune was the location of the conclave due to the large auto and components industry centred around the city organisers addedthe event pandey added was to largely inform and encourage the auto and autocomponents makers and industries allied to evs to participate in the centres pli schemes which will be operationalized from the beginning of the next fiscal amit mehta joint secretary of the ministry of heavy industries added that both the auto industry and the advanced chemistry cell acc plis have received a good response in the request for proposal rfp and prebid meeting phasespandey also stressed on the adoption of alternative fuels and automotive technologies such flex engines and evs adding that improvements in charging infrastructure are needed including charging times for vehiclesthe sale of evs has increased drastically in the last few months due to the various schemes and subsidies provided by the government however there are various challenges we must counter including the price and the charging infrastructure to overcome one of these problems related to charging i am going to urge arai to develop technology pandey addedhe also touted that the famei and ii schemes that subsidise the purchase of evs adding that the acc pli will provide up to rs362 crore of support per gigawatt hour gwh of energy storage space developed to encourage more players to enter the battery space pandey remarked that his ministry has allotted around rs 120 crore for the development of drone technology