Team Blitz India
EMPHASISING that it was time for Indian agriculture to diversify towards energy and power, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has said that the country will be an exporter of energy, and green hydrogen will make this possible.
He was delivering the inaugural CII Vikram Kirloskar Memorial Lecture in Bengaluru earlier this month. The theme for the event was ‘Future of Green Mobility and Green Fuels’.
CII Vikram Kirloskar Memorial Lecture Series has been instituted to honour the memory of its past president and former Vice Chairperson, Toyota Kirloskar Motors.
Gadkari asked the industry to work towards making India the biggest automobile producer within five years while working towards introduction of flexi fuel engine and alternative fuel.
An import of around Rs 16 lakh crore of fossil fuel was not only an economic problem but was also causing pollution in major cities and creating health problems, he reflected.
He said his ministry was working towards pollution reduction especially since the road sector was responsible for 40 per cent of air pollution.
Besides automobiles, the minister also emphasised on the need to use alternative fuel like ethanol, methanol and CNG for tractors and drones. He said flexi fuel engine could be used in drones for the agriculture sector in order to have more efficient use of urea and other fertilisers.
According to him, corn, wheat, sugar, and rice were surplus in production and the prices in India were not remunerative which made agriculture unviable. Production of biofuels could change this.
In her comments at the lecture, chairperson and managing director, Kirloskar Systems, Geetanjali Vikram Kirloskar, said that both her husband and the honourable minister shared the passion for new technologies especially in the space of mobility.
She said the lecture sets the tone for the industry to strive towards creating a seamless and sustainable mobility landscape.
