Can Gadkari come to explain govt proposal for introducing EVs, asks SC

The Supreme Court Wednesday expressed desire to interact with the Transport Minister Nitin Gadkarion the proposal for gradual conversion of all public transport and government vehicles into electric vehicles (EVs) to curb air pollution.
The apex court, however, did not seek presence of the minister after Additional Solicitor General A N S Nadkarni raised objection.

A bench, headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde, enquired from Nadkarni as to whether the minister can come over for an interaction to assist this court.
"Can the minister come to Supreme Court and explain proposal to introduce non-polluting vehicles run on electricity/hydrogen," the bench asked the law officer.
Nadkarni raised objection, saying the appearance of the minister can be misused for political purposes.
He added however that there was nothing wrong in politicians appearing before the court.
"We understand that Mr Prashant Bhushan is a political person but he is not going to argue with the minister," the bench said.
Without seeking the presence of the transport minister, the top court further said: "We consider it appropriate that all the issues be considered simultaneously with the assistance of authority empowered to take decision." It then put up the matter for hearing after four weeks.
During the hearing, Bhushan, appearing for NGO - CPIL, said that as per the National E-Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP), 2020 EVs were to be procured by the government.
The authorities were also required to provide charging points for electric vehicles at public places like malls and petrol pumps.
Bhushan also said that under the scheme the authorities were required to promote sale of EVs by providing subsidies.
The bench adjourned the hearing for four weeks and ordered that in the meantime all issues relating to EVs be considered by the government with the assistance of an authority empowered to take decisions.

Gadkari promises Rs 15 trillion highway spending, revival of IL&FS projects

A go getter in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet, Union Minister Nitin Jairam Gadkari in his second innings has lined up big plans — from infusing Rs 15 trillion in highways to propelling GDP growth by globalising khadi and MSME products.
After taking charge of Road Transport and Highways and Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) ministry, Gadkari in his first interview to PTI, said the mission ahead was to further propel country's economic growth through concerted efforts be it in highways or MSME.

"The blue print for highways is already in place. We plan to take up work worth at least Rs 15 trillion in highways that includes building 22 green expressways, rolling out all stuck projects in the next 100 days and creating a 'grid of roads' at par with power grid," Gadkari told PTI in an interview here Wednesday.
The Minister said during his previous tenure, his ministries -- Road Transport and Highways, Shipping, Water Resources, Ganga Rejuvenation and River development -- in a cumulative basis, had seen a spend of Rs 17 trillion that included Rs 11 trillion in highways sector alone.
Referring to the momentous victory of BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gadkari said the resounding mandate by the people rising above petty party-politics, caste-creed or communalism has reaffirmed that people need "development" which will remain a priority area.

Through demonetisation, the message has gone clear to the people that Modi-led government is against corruption and blackmoney and all initiatives whether welfare schemes, houses, gas, electricity or health insurance have benefitted the poor, he said.
The minister said that the priority for him will be "rolling out all stuck highway projects that include many of the IL&FS projects within 100 days".
"I reviewed projects yesterday and found out about 225 projects were pending for financial closure etc, which has been resolved and now only about 20-25 projects are left. This is a priority area and the pending projects will be zero within 100 days," the minister said.
He said credit goes to his Ministry for saving Indian banks a whopping sum of over Rs 3 trillion from turning NPAs during his earlier tenure, as there were 403 stuck projects when he had taken charge in 2014.
"The bidders were shying away from highways projects... Highways sector had collapsed... Now that it has been brought on track the aim is to further strengthen this.
"Around 13 out of 17 highways stretches in the border areas that will double up as air strips are nearing completion. Delhi-Meerut Expressway will be completed in the next two months and work is in full swing on the new Delhi-Mumbai expressway," the minister said.
Gadkari said he was "satisfied" with the work done in highways in the last five years with "no instance of corruption" and added that the roadmap ahead was to take the highway building target to 40 km a day as it was nearing 32 km per day now.
Despite a huge Rs 11 trillion work done by the ministry, "not a single penny was involved in corruption", as the tender and all award processes were placed online, he said.
Gadkari said, task ahead was minimising accidents and in addition to about 704 black spots another 8,000 have been identified and will be rectified soon.
The Ministry is also striving to get the entire toll income which at present goes to the government kitty, so that it could be pumped in highway building, he said.
Build, operate and toll (BOT) mode of highways building was being revived and projects worth 3,000 km would be bid out.
The Minister said, there was significant development in the Kailash Mansarovar route through Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand which is likely to be completed early next year.
Besides, Chardham project linking Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri will be completed by the year-end as all green clearances were in place, he said.
About his new Ministry MSME, the senior BJP leader said his endeavour would be to globalise MSME and Khadi products through joint ventures and he was specially keen on mass-scale honey production besides promoting products like Moringa which are globally much in demand.
The focus will be rural areas, and forming clusters of potters, people dependent on leather industries and giving them assistance with new technology aimed at promoting export of these products, he said.
Citing the example of coir, he said small scale industries will be promoted, and noted that the the plan is to make coir industry a Rs 20,000 crore economy from the present Rs 10,000 crore.
"I am confident that these are going to create huge employment and propel GDP growth which will apparently be visible in next two to three years," he said.
Khadi will be another thriving area, he said.
Gadkari is known for his penchant for out of box solutions to economic governance issues and the allotment of the MSME to him is significant in view of its potential not yet being realised.
MSMEs contributes around 45 per cent in the country's exports, about 25 per cent to the GDP from service activities and over 33 per cent to the manufacturing output of India.

Why giving Gadkari the MSME ministry may be a most inspired decision

The allotment of the Ministry of Micro and Small Enterprises in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new Council of ministers to Nitin Jairam Gadkari, in addition to the road transport and shipping portfolio, is not surprising. As a ballast for employment generation in the economy, the role of the MSME sector is massive, but it has underperformed. Significantly, in the past two decades, no minister so senior in the protocol has been awarded this ministry. Gadkari ranks fourth in the Cabinet.
In the past five years, almost every time the government has faced a challenge in some sector of the economy, it is Gadkari to whom Modi has turned. He has, to use a cliche, been a sort of champion for sputtering causes in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.

Of these, the most recent was a turnaround in cleaning of the Ganga river, which personally rebounded to the credit of Modi in Varanasi. At a larger level, the demonstration effect of the river cleaning was dramatic. It finally seemed plausible that India’s challenge to get its rivers as viable pieces of economic trunk routes would fall into place. The creation of the new omnibus ministry of Jal Shakti in the Union council of ministers sworn in on Thursday, combining all the water-related departments — Namami Gange, drinking water and irrigation into one place is a testament to this achievement.
Similarly, in 2014, when Gadkari walked in as the minister for road transport and highways, the pace of construction had dipped to just about 12 kilometres per day. Construction companies had abandoned projects in droves and it was difficult to figure out how the sector could be revived. From there, the pace of construction of roads in 2019 reached over 32 kilometres a day. Investment reports are clear that the road sector has acted as a major investment multiplier for the economy — and at times been the only one for a fiscally constrained economy. Signature projects like the new bridge over the mighty Brahmaputra or the East and West Peripheral Expressways ringing the NCR have been the visible demonstrators of these initiatives. This is where the usefulness of Gadkari comes in.
It is of course a big challenge to presume that Gadkari can do the same turnaround for the MSME sector. The sector, despite its potential, defies a single solution. Yet, there is no doubt that if India has any hope to get a strong handle for growth of employment, this is the sector to look to. The National Sample Survey’s 73rd round estimates that in 2015-16 the MSME sector created 111 million jobs, of which 36.04 million were in manufacturing and another 38.72 million in trade in both rural and urban areas across the country. It ranks second only to agriculture, and there is no doubt that it has to rebound for the growth rate of the Indian economy to climb.
Gadkari has a penchant for crafting innovative solutions to economic governance issues. Plus, he is known as one to speak his mind, often to the perceived embarrassment of the party. Unless one presumes that this is one of the reasons for the allotment, since the MSME sector has always been the Waterloo of ministers in NDA or the United Progressive Alliance before it, this could be a most inspired decision by Narendra Modi in his list of ministers. A lot will ride on whether Gadkari can change the history of the MSME sector.