Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], October 29 : Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, laid out a vision to transform India into the world's top automobile hub within the next decade, at the Spain-India Business Summit held in Mumbai on Tuesday.
Citing India's competitive advantages in production costs and labour, Gadkari expressed confidence in the country's capacity to become a leading global player.
"The size of our automobile industry is 22 lakh crores. and size of the China's automobile industry is 44 lakh crores and US is 78 lakh crores. Now, our aim is to make India's automobile industry within 10 years number one in the world." said Gadkari.
Gadkari said India's production cost is much less than other countries, but high logistic cost is an issue for India. With the growth of infrastructure, better roads and ports our logistic costs is coming down.
"USA and European countries, it is 12 per cent. And Indian scenario, it going up to 14 to 16 percent. So, this is the first time we have decided to reduce this cost. We have now a lot of express highway, 36 green access control express highways. Our NHI is triple-A rating," Gadkari added.
In discussing India's strides in sustainable technology, Gadkari spoke about innovative water and waste management initiatives.
Gadkari explained, "We have implemented the water sewage, there is a 90 ml dislodge of Mathura converting into clean water and giving that water to Indian oil refinery in Mathura. First time when I was water resource minister, we planned it for hybrid annuity. 40 per cent from the government and 60 per cent from the investor."
Gadkari also addressed India's energy independence goals, acknowledging the country's heavy reliance on imported fossil fuels, amounting to Rs22 lakh crore annually.
He stated, "It is one of the important economic challenge to our country that we have the import of fossil fuel of 22 lakh crores. We have got electric car, electric buses, electric scooter, electric now auto rickshaw and now electric truck also are ready and electric tractor is ready. So we are making alternative fuel and biofuel."
He emphasized India's commitment to alternative and biofuels as solutions, noting recent advancements in electric vehicles, including electric cars, buses, scooters, trucks, and tractors.
Gadkari said, "As a success story, already we have global alliance in G20 and lot of new technology have already invented. So we are making ethanol from corn, from sugarcane juice, molasses, B molasses, C molasses and food grain."
He added, "And that is the reason that by making this alternative and biofuel, I am confident that we will reduce the cost of the fuel and making good express highway, our target is within 2 years, our logistic cost will be 9 per cent, single digit, by which 100 per cent the economic viability, 100 per cent is going to increase. In Indian scenario, there is lot of transparency in our system, the fast track decision making process, and the dream of the Prime Minister is to make India Atmanirbhar Bharat."
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