Confident of Indian automobile industry becoming number one globally in 5 years: Nitin Gadkari

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday exuded confidence that India's automobile industry will rise to the number one position globally in the next five years and outlined his ministry's ambitious target to also reduce the logistics costs in India to 9 per cent over two years.

Speaking at the Amazon Smbhav Summit, the Road Transport and Highways Minister noted the remarkable growth of India's automobile industry, which he said has surged from Rs 7 lakh crore to Rs 22 lakh crore since he took charge of office.

"First is USA -- Rs 78 lakh crore, second-largest automobile industry is in China--Rs 47 lakh crore, and now India is at Rs 22 lakh crore. I am confident that within 5 years, we want to make the Indian automobile industry number 1 in the world," he said.

The minister said the presence of reputed global automobile brands in India is a clear indication of the country's potential.

He further articulated his ministry's target to reduce the logistics costs in India to a single digit within 2 years.

"The logistic cost in India is 16 per cent and in China, it is 8 per cent, in the USA and European countries, it is 12 per cent. The government has decided to reduce the logistic costs...in my ministry, we have the target that within 2 years, we will take this logistic cost to 9 per cent," he said.

Gadkari highlighted specific projects that will drastically cut travel times between major cities. He noted that the journey from Delhi to Dehradun, which currently takes about nine hours, will be reduced to just two hours by January 2025. Similarly, travel times between Delhi-Mumbai, and Chennai-Bengaluru are expected to decrease significantly, he said.

He then stressed the importance of adopting alternative fuels and biofuels and said using bio-ethanol in vehicles could lead to significant savings in fuel costs while simultaneously reducing pollution.

Gadkari also outlined plans to convert organic waste into hydrogen fuel and other valuable materials through advanced recycling technologies.

He pointed out that Delhi generates substantial municipal waste, with only 80 lakh tons currently being utilised.

"Our idea is to make hydrogen from the organic waste. By segregating the waste, we can get petrol, plastic, metals and glass. The recycling of all these materials available is possible.

And another technology is by which we can use this waste to get green hydrogen," he said.