Pawan Mulukutla

Executive Program Director - Integrated Transport, Clean Air and Hydrogen

Bio

Pawan Mulukutla is the Executive Program Director - Integrated Transport, Clean Air and Hydrogen at WRI India. Pawan is responsible for providing strategic direction and implementing the overarching objectives of these programs. He also leads the teams’ development of synergistic and action-oriented research programs to support India’s ambitious decarbonization journey through effective, equitable and inclusive solutions. His leadership at WRI India builds upon the ongoing global dialogue and collaborations towards transitioning to sustainable energy consumption models based on low-carbon pathways.

Pawan has over two decades of professional experience working at the intersection of urban mobility, energy and environment. He has been at the forefront of various policy developments at the national and sub-national levels to improve the overall energy consumption profile of the transport sector. One of his recent milestones has been leading WRI India’s knowledge support to the development of the National Green Hydrogen Mission announced by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India. With technical expertise in the energy and transport domains, Pawan has also enabled the development of several other policy initiatives aimed at the electrification of public transport solutions. He has been a critical force in enabling sub-national systemic changes that have led to the ongoing acceleration of electric mobility at the state level.

His work also focuses on enabling the co-creation and scale-up of multi-sectoral solutions to mitigate air pollution at the municipal level. Over the years, he has provided strategic direction and impetus to our work with various city-level agencies to implement action plans and solutions to enhance air quality with a focus on transport emission reduction, clean construction practices, and road dust and waste burning reduction.

A well-known sustainable mobility specialist, Pawan has been part of various national & international panels and coalitions on sustainable transportation. Pawan also writes extensively on the themes of sustainable mobility, green hydrogen economy, air and public transport transformation for some of the leading media houses like Hindustan Times, Scroll, Times of India, Hindu etc. Pawan’s areas of interest include India's pathway to a green hydrogen economy, value chain systems, skill development, energy storage, charging infrastructure planning framework, EV asset financing and air pollution mitigation.

When not working, Pawan can be found practicing or teaching meditation and mindfulness techniques and playing tennis.

Blogs

The Game of DPI and How to Play It
by Ankita Rajeshwari, Pawan Mulukutla, Rajit Bhat e Madhav Pai - December 09, 2024
Growing up, building Lego sets was one of our favorite activities. Despite a finite set of building blocks, the possibilities of creation seemed infinite. Stacking together blocks of different colors, shapes and sizes showed us how the interconnectedness of the pieces could give us entirely new products to play with. What if the same core principles could offer a potential solution to enable a paradigm shift in our national pursuit of decarbonization?
Decoupling Road Freight from Emissions
by Sharvari Patki, Chandana K e Pawan Mulukutla - November 23, 2023
India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, despite an ongoing global slowdown. This growth must happen without compromising on
Key Lessons for India’s Bus Electrification Drive
by Aparna Vijaykumar, Pawan Mulukutla, Anirudh Ray e Sutanu Pati - July 01, 2022
Convergence Energy Services Limited (CESL), supported by WRI India, recently concluded India’s biggest electric bus (e-bus) tender to deploy 5,450 e-buses across five cities: Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Surat. This tender, based on a gross cost contracting (GCC) model and supported by
Accelerating Electrification of Small Commercial Freights in India
by Rohan Rao, Dr. Parveen Kumar e Pawan Mulukutla - January 14, 2022
Tata Motors recently unveiled a comprehensive range of 21 new commercial vehicle models across different segments with an emphasis on its ‘Power of 6’ program. In line with this strategy of low-emission and high productivity, they are working on developing multiple
How can Smart Mobility change the way cities move?
by Pawan Mulukutla - May 31, 2021
This article was originally published on ET Insights.

By 2030, India’s urban population is expected to nearly double to 600 million. Cities have
Building a Smooth Road Map for City Bus Systems in India
by Pawan Mulukutla - November 17, 2016
City buses, plying on both long and short distance routes, are the primary mode of transport for majority Indians, with over 25 billion trips recorded in 2014-15. The most vulnerable sections of society depend on buses as one of the cheapest and the most convenient means of commute, in small, medium and metro cities alike. Unfortunately, despite being the backbone of urban mobility, bus
Increasing Mode Share of Bus Transport in Indian Cities
by Pawan Mulukutla e Priyanka Vasudevan - January 15, 2015
This blog post originally appeared in TheCityFix.

Like many cities around the world, Indian cities are experiencing urbanization, motorization, and increasing congestion. Coupled with declining public transport use and
Regulation can help e-rickshaws transform urban mobility across India
by Pawan Mulukutla, Ramya Swayamprakash e Sridhar Padmanabhan - November 14, 2014
This blog post originally appeared on TheCityFix.

As one of the most widely used forms of intermediate public transport or paratransit – services that connect users to mass transport systems like buses or metro – auto-
From traffic flow to pedestrian access: Shifting Mumbai’s parking policy
by Pawan Mulukutla - November 05, 2014
This blog post originally appeared on TheCityFix.

In a recent study, the International Energy Agency (IEA)