Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) organized an annual session with Road Transport and Highway Minister Shri Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday.  Shri Rishabh Kothari, President, MCCI in his welcome address said that Shri Gadkari’s ministry was playing a crucial role in recovering India’s economic health post-pandemic.

Shri Gadkari said India would play a crucial role in achieving the global sustainable goals by 2030. At least 50% of the global sustainable goals were expected to come from India. He said the government had set a target of increasing the size of the automobile industry by 2024. From a level of Rs 7.5 lakh crore at present, it would go up to Rs 15 lakh crore by 2024. But the government’s main target was to develop an automobile industry based on Flexi fuels and green hydrogen would be crucial to it. While import substitution was the country’s primary target, India would emerge as an energy exporter once it started producing enough green hydrogen, Gadkari said.

Ethanol, he said, was not available enough in India at the present point in time. Although the government has decided to blend 20% ethanol with petrol and diesel, which would require 900 crore liter of production, production at preset was 450 crore litre.

On highway construction, he said, the government would do Rs 5 lakh crore worth of jobs with Rs 2 lakh crore funded from the government and Rs 3 lakh crore funded by the public. The government’s fundraising program through issuing bonds has been oversubscribed by 7 times, which has flushed the ministry with funds.

He said for the eastern region Rs 60,000 crore has been allocated for creating a highway from Varanasi to Kolkata and another highway from Gorakhpur to Siliguri. The Delhi- Mumbai expressway has reduced travel time from 48 hours to 16 hours, which has formidably saved cost. The government has initiated to save construction cost of roads by 20% using alternative biomaterials and wastes, instead of concrete materials.