'Cong misled people... we will easily win Maharashtra polls'

Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari was in conversation with HT's national political editor Sunetra Choudhury at an online session of the 22nd HT Leadership Summit. Their conversation spanned infrastructure, environment, and the politics of his home state, Maharashtra, which goes to the polls on November 20

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How much are roads a factor for voters in an election? A country where water, power, transport and communication are developed attracts capital investment, which leads to an increase in industries, trade and business. Per capita income increases and poverty reduces. Therefore, better infrastructure is important for the country's development and progress. For example, we reconstructed the old highway between Delhi and Dehradun which increased the number of pilgrims by 2.5 times. This led to the creation of a (business) ecosystem of taxis, buses, restaurants and hotels and created employment.

OUP 100 When we build roads, it brings industries and townships. My ministry has taken two initiatives to work towards the development of the country. We are making 36 green express highways which will shorten the by-road distance. We have built the access controlled green express highway from Kashmir to Kanniyakumari and also increased the capacity of the existing roads. The second initiative taken was to prioritise biofuel and alternative fuel in place of petrol and diesel, therefore, we have encouraged ethanol, methanol, bio-diesel, bio-LNG, bio-CNG, electric and hydrogen.

Through these initiatives, we will definitely bring down the current logistic cost from 14-16% to a singledigit value. We can become more competitive in the export market.

Our exports will increase by 1.5 times and I believe these two initiatives will be helpful in realising Prime Minister Narendra Modi's aspiration to become a $5 trillion economy as well as the world's third-largest economy.

Do you think that there is a disadvantage to the multi-modal development which is causing damage to eco-sensitive areas and how will you balance that out?