Govt working to make auto sector no.1 globally in 5 years: Gadkari

The government is working to make India's automobile industry number one in the world within five years, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Monday.

Inaugurating the 'International Value Summit 2025', Gadkari said the automobile sector pays maximum GST revenue to the government and generates employment opportunities.

''Within five years, our target is to make India's automobile industry the number 1 in the world,'' the road transport and highways minister said.

Gadkari pointed out that all big automobile companies are present in the country.

''When I took charge as transport minister, the size of the Indian automobile industry was Rs 14 lakh crore. The size of Indian automobile industry now is Rs 22 lakh crore,'' Gadkari said.

Presently, the size of the US automobile industry is Rs 78 lakh crore, followed by China (Rs 47 lakh crore) and India (Rs 22 lakh crore).

The minister said India is the fastest-growing economy in the world and the dream of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to make India the third-largest economy.

''We need to develop good infrastructure for achieving this target,'' he said.

Referring to the quality of highways construction, Gadkari said quality of detailed project reports (DPRs) made in India are not good.

A DPR, which includes surveys, investigations and designs, is essential to the project implementation process.

Talking about ethanol economy, Gadkari said farmers should not only be recognised as 'annadata' or food producers, but also as 'urjadata', or energy producers.

He expressed confidence that India's cost of logistics would come down to 9 per cent by the end of December.

''Until recently, logistics cost in India was about 16 per cent of the GDP. But according to a latest joint IIM-IIT survey, we have brought this down to 10 per cent. That is a major milestone and we're aiming for single digits soon,'' Gadkari said.

According to him, logistics cost in China's is 8 per cent, while that of Europe and America is 12 per cent.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)