Reducing import-increasing export, most important for AtmaNirbhar Bharat: Gadkari

Lucknow: Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Saturday said that the most important thing for AtmaNirbhar Bharat is that to reduce imports and to increase exports and that is the way by which create more employment potential in the country could be created in the rural and agriculture area.
During the inaugural session of the 81st Annual Session of the Indian Road Congress being organized here, Gadkari said, “The most important thing for AtmaNirbhar Bharat is that we have to reduce our imports and to increase our exports. That is the way by which we are going to create more employment potential in the country in the rural and agricultural areas.”
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Public Works Department Minister of UP Jitin Prasada, Union Minister of State Gen VK Singh along with the senior officials of the central and state government were present on the occasion.
He said that India is the fastest growing economy. “The dream of our Prime Minister is to make India a 5 trillion-dollar economy. AtmaNirbhar Bharat is the mission of all of us and for this reason at any cost we should have a good infrastructure in the country.”
He said, “Without infrastructure we don’t have industry, without industry we don’t have capital investment, without investment we cannot create employment potential and without employment potential we cannot eradicate poverty.”
He said that the most important thing for the development of the country is to create good infrastructure in the country and for that road infrastructure is very important. “I tell people that where there is a will there’s a way and when there is no will there is only survey, discussion, seminars, committees, sub-committees and research groups,” he said.
The Minister said that somewhere an audit of the implementation of the research paper in the practical approach on the grassroot level has to be done, otherwise it will only be a document. “I always tell the people that we name innovation, entrepreneurship, science, technology, research, skill and successful practices as knowledge, but conversion of knowledge into wealth is the future of the country and that is the fact,” he said.
He said that India is the country with the highest engineer, trained and youngest manpower in the world. “That is our strength. This is the reason people have a lot of expectations from India. So, conversion of knowledge into wealth is very important,” he said.
Gadkari said that India is not a rich country, instead it is a developing country. “There is value of every Rupee. And the first thing which I will appeal to is to try to reduce the cost of construction and improve the quality of construction,” he said.
Emphasizing on the use of waste material in road construction works, he pointed out that in Uttar Pradesh waste plastic is being used. “One year before I requested the Environment Minister to give permission for import of used tyres, because we wanted to use rubber power as bitumen to make good quality roads. There are a lot of new innovations by which we can use waste material such as road construction and we will protect ecology and environment,” he said.
Gadkari said that ethics, economy, ecology and environment are the three important pillars of Indian society. “We have to protect the ecology and environment. The road sector is contributing 40 per cent of air pollution in the country. We are importing 17 lakh crores,” he said while pointing towards air pollution in construction of roads.
Talking about green hydrogen fuel, he said one kilogram of green will cost up to 1 dollar that is 80 Rs, and that it can run up to 450 kilometers. “When I was talking about electric scooters and cars no one offered to believe me today there is a waiting list for electric cars and the people are coming to me on your recommendation that we can get the car,” he said.
He suggested the Yogi government launch an electric bus service in UP. “We issued a tender for 5,500 buses. The price quoted in the tender is Rs 39 per kilometer for non-AC buses, whereas that of electric AC buses is Rs 41 per kilometer. In UP per kilometer the cost of each diesel bus is not less than Rs 100. If the UP government adopts the London model, then without investing a single Rupee it will not only reduce the pollution, but the people will also get comfort,” he said.
Gadkari said that there are 124 districts in the country, which are socially, economically and educationally backward and which are called aspirational districts. “Our duty is to create jobs and opportunities in the backward area of the area, agriculture, rural, tribal and forest and there we can make this biofuel. Prosperity is coming from roads. I have promised Yogi that we will make the road infra of UP equivalent to the United States by the end of 2024,” he said. (UNI)