On Thursday, Gadkari put it to Indian companies: if you want to be more competitive in manufacturing, mobility and logistics, now is the time to fast-track some of that tech. He was speaking at AMCHAM’s Annual Leadership Summit, where he told industry heads that American firms are churning out new innovations and India should be in on them. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is even looking at some US consultancy to put together the kind of detailed project reports needed for our road work.
US partnerships as a competitive lever
He doesn’t see this as just for show. “It’s a market strategy,” he put it, one where you can de-risk a project and make things happen faster by combining what the US has in the way of innovation with the scale of India.
Logistics costs fall, strengthening the case
To back up his point, Gadkari pointed to a study from six months back by IITs in Chennai and Kanpur and IIM Bangalore. They found we’ve driven our logistics cost down to 10 per cent, from 16 per cent in the past. We’re talking single digits now, thanks to the expressways and economic corridors we’ve been building. Put that against 12 per cent in the US or Europe, or 8-10 in China, and you see why supply chain performance is so critical to our export margins.
Auto industry scale and the five-year target
Then there is the automobile sector. Gadkari has a five-year plan to put us at number one in the world. When he first came in as transport minister, the industry was worth Rs 14 lakh crore; today it is Rs 22 lakh crore. You have to compare that to the US at Rs 78 lakh crore and China at 47. It’s a lot of room to grow. And it’s an industry that puts 4 lakh young people to work and is the top GST earner for the Centre and the states.
Clean energy corridors and hydrogen freight
But we also have to deal with our reliance on fossil fuel. We are putting out Rs 22 lakh crore a year on imports, and that’s an environmental and economic liability. Clean energy is the answer, especially when it comes to road transport.
What industry should prepare for
Some of these corridors are meant to be pilots, to be built on as the tech and supply side catch up. In the end, Gadkari is laying out a playbook: work with the US to shorten your timelines and raise the bar on engineering. If Indian companies can find the right partners, they will be well placed to take their share in the next wave of growth in autos and green mobility.
To that end, the government has identified 10 highway stretches where green hydrogen-powered trucks can ply to cut vehicular pollution. Examples include:
– Greater Noida-Delhi-Agra
– Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Surat
– Thiruvananthapuram-Kochi
– Jamnagar-Ahmedabad
For boardrooms weighing next bets, three signals stand out:
– JV-led tech transfer is being actively encouraged
– Logistics costs are trending down to 10 per cent
– Hydrogen highways are moving from idea to pilots
