Gadkari bets on electric mobility, PPP, retail investors for infra growth

There are two things that one can always expect from Nitin Gadkari: candour and new age infrastructure ideas. As chief guest at the India@75 Platinum Perspectives organised by Business Standard, the union minister for road transport and highways (MoRTH) demonstrated both in equal measure.

In a fireside chat with BS, Gadkari kept the audience engaged while replying to questions on the theme of ‘Past, Present and Future’. “In the old days, there were communist parties, socialist parties, and swatantra parties at the fore. Today, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, eradication of poverty is our main mission. For that we need to generate more employment potential, and we cannot do that without capital investment and industry. We need to increase our exports and reduce our imports,” Gadkari said.

Elaborating on the overall vision, the minister said, “we have to step up development in rural and agricultural areas, to be able to increase the growth rate. With that, India can surely become ‘atmanirbhar’, and our government is trying to do that.” Going on to other sectors, including energy and infrastructure, the minister said, ‘’we have the potential, but we are importing. Our aim is to start exporting instead of being importers.”

To a question on sectors that stand out in terms of progress through the years, Gadkari listed out automobiles among the top. He said his dream is to take the automobile sector to Rs 15 trillion from Rs 7.5 trillion currently. “This is the sector giving maximum revenue to the Centre and state governments. It also creates maximum employment potential in the country. Today, 99 per cent of all reputed brands are present in India. Majority of companies are exporting their cars from India. One of the great achievements is that our two-wheeler manufacturers are already exporting 50 per cent of their production,” he explained.

He said the automobile sector can reach new heights on the back of new age fuels such as ethanol, methanol, green hydrogen and going electric. In fact, Gadkari travels in a green hydrogen operated car.  “We have purchased 5000 electric buses, and the plan is to procure 50,000 electric buses. This can reduce the ticket cost by 30 per cent. All state transporters are at huge losses. We need to encourage public transport,” he said.

Gadkari once famously said, “American roads are good not because Americans are rich. Americans are rich because their roads are good.” He still believes in that and his inspiration to have ‘public-private partnership (PPP)’ comes from that – to save the maximum budget for the welfare of the poor and backward people, he said.

“When I was minister in Maharashtra, I was appointed to construct the Mumbai-Pune express highway, Worli-Bandra sea link and 55 flyovers in Mumbai. At that time, funding was a big problem. For the first time, it was decided that we will take money from the people who can pay and give free-of-charge services to those who can’t afford it,” Gadkari said, “ The motivation behind

my push for PPP and BoT projects is that I saved the budget, and during that time my ministry connected 14,000 villages of Maharashtra with all-season roads.”

On future plans, Gadkari said the ministry is in the process of making 26 green express highways. “By the end of December, we’ll connect Delhi to Haridwar, Jaipur, and Dehradun in two hours, Delhi to Amritsar in four hours, Katra six hours, Srinagar in eight hours, and Delhi to Mumbai journey will be only 12-hour long. We are also connecting Chennai to Bengaluru in two hours,” he said.

Admitting that the areas that he manages, referring to vehicles on roads, are the biggest pollution generators, Gadkari said the ministry would work on road projects to reduce the pollution in Mumbai and Pune. “All north India traffic going towards the south goes to Mumbai and Pune. We are working on a highway where one can go from Delhi to Surat through the Delhi-Mumbai expressway, then pass through Nasik, Ahmednagar, and Solapur. It will also lead to a saving of 220 kilometres in the journey,” he said.

 

In terms of financial turnaround, Gadkari said, when he took charge of the ministry, there were 406 stalled projects costing Rs 3.85 trillion. ‘’We terminated projects worth Rs 40,000 crore. For the rest, we resolved issues and my ministry saved Indian banks from NPAs of over Rs 3 trillion. I keep telling my officials – don't break the law, bend the law to the last limit of breaking point and positively try to resolve issues,” he said.

The fireside chat was not just about success stories. Gadkari called road accidents his biggest failure as the road minister. “Frankly speaking, this (road accident) is the only field in the last 7-8 years, where I’ve tried my level best, but could not get success. I am ready to accept that it’s my defeat. We have 500,000 accidents and 150,000 deaths. And this is not only because of road conditions, there are other problems — road engineering, automobile engineering,” Gadkari said. In that context, he highlighted the need for giving emergency health services to the victims and sought people’s cooperation.

When asked about government steps to prevent road accidents, especially in the backdrop of former Tata Sons chairperson Cyrus Mistry’s death in a car crash, Gadkari said, he has taken a decision that there will be a provision that the car seat belt alarm should beep even when the rear-seat rider is not wearing a seat belt.

“We will impose fines if rear-seat riders are not wearing seatbelts. I have cleared the notification and within three days we will issue it. Since this is a subject in the concurrent list, the quantum of penalty can vary from one amount to another.’’ On whether it would be applicable to all cars, he said, ‘’yes, we have already decided that airbags should be mandatory for economic models. There was some hesitation from some manufacturers, but it is wrong to let the poor people die.”

He expressed his intention to focus on quality public transport. He plans to make a public transport system on electricity. He said, “public transport systems on electricity are very important. It has to be import-substitute, cost-effective, pollution-free and indigenous.”

He said upgradation of technology in road construction is also on the agenda, along with road safety. “Now we are making good roads, so we have to change the law on speed limits. All transport ministers will formulate a policy on speed limits based on how many lanes a road has.”

 Gadkari conceded that climate change related impact would be the biggest hindrance in growth and needs to be factored in. “Everywhere, climate change is a problem, but we need to resolve the small issues everywhere.’’

Concluding the discussion on an optimistic note for the general public, the minister said he would make roads an investment asset. “I have decided to make roads with the money of retired senior citizens and others…. I will open NHAI InvIT to retail investors and I promise to offer a 7-8 per cent minimum return per month to retail investors,” Gadkari said. He added that NHAI is AAA-rated. "No problem, no risk, and interest will be paid every month," he said, adding there is no problem with funding as there are many willing to invest.

Gadkari was scheduled to attend another function Tuesday evening after his conversation with BS, but the minister was in a mood to spend more time talking about India@75 and beyond.