Madhavji, all the other distinguished ladies and gentlemen, actively associated with the India Ideas Conclave 2018. As I was driving in here, I was just trying to reflect on what did we do differently from what was happening in the country for so many years, and has it been a business as usual scenario, is it that governments come in and governments change, but ideas remain constant or almost constant. Or do we see a radical shift in both thinking and execution of ideas?

And, I felt that there was a dramatic shift, both in concept in the thinking behind this government’s policies, in the execution of the policies, and in the objectives with which this government is carrying out its various activities.

I will give you a case in point since the last question related to infrastructure. I will just give you a small case in point, which occurred to me as I drove in and Anuj is here, my colleague, I have just asked him to do a little bit of a research, as we drove in on this subject. Shaurya, we have been investing in the railways over the last 70 years, post-independence. Of course, the amounts were always very small, and as Eeelaji rightly pointed out, a country which is at the development phase cannot afford to have small levels of investment in infrastructure. We will have to go much more aggressive, somewhat keeping in mind the fact that this infrastructure will sustain growth, and this infrastructure will enable a better quality of life for our people, which is that inclusive growth issue that you are discussing.

But if we look at how we have invested in infrastructure and take the railways as just one example – over the last 65 years, every railway budget that came in was a political budget. The Railway Ministry was one of the most coveted Ministries, irrespective of the number of accidents it may have had, because it gave you the clout to make humongous amounts of announcements.

And when this government came in, we realised that we have announcements galore, whether for new rail lines, whether for tracks – every conceivable announcement has been made but has never been backed up with adequate funding. And given that you had projects which were..some of them were as old as of the 70s, which have not yet been completed. In fact, there is a project in West Bengal of the 70s, where I have now asked them to do a zero-based budgeting approach review, because that project to my mind can never come up. Whole townships have come up on the path that the railway was to take.

So, what eventually happened was the budget became a political tool, based on which probably elections were fought and promises were made, knowing full well that this is never going to be implemented. If at all some of them were taken up for implementation, they were given paltry sums of money, which was barely enough to probably just keep the show going, the few officers busy, the security of the land, if any, acquired, some of the stock of tracks and all which are lying there or the sleepers maintain that – don’t know how much of it any case got stolen – but nothing ever got completed.

And if at all something’s got done, it was the base was very….. and I think we frittered away a lot of resources, projects kept getting into huge time and cost over-run, investments made never reached in terms of benefit to the people of India. So, the question of that inclusive growth was never really a material factor while deciding infrastructure investments. And we have landed up in a situation where today, probably, a Railway Minister would be the most unpopular Minister, because he is all the time hounded that ‘but this project has been approved in the budget of 2010, this project has been approved in the budget of 2007, etc. etc.

Now, how do we explain to them? I have a thousand projects which are approved. Mr Modi changed the way the railways worked. First of all, we got rid of that budget, so that that political interference can be mitigated, can be done away with it. I think one of the biggest and, probably elementary, but most sensible reform was doing away with the railway budget, so that we can focus our energies on what is already on the table.

Second, we started prioritizing what is good for India, not what is good for any political class of people. And, at least the last four years, we have had RajyaSabha Members heading the Railway Ministry, which by itself was a rarity if you look at that long list of Railway Ministers. So, we don’t have a political constituency per se to pander to or cater to, in any case, Mr Modi would not allow that, even if it was a LokSabha MP.

And, the study that I have asked my office to do is to check that we have invested about two and a half times the amount in the railways alone on capex, than what was invested between 2009 to 2004. So 2009-14, in the five years UPA-2 invested about 2,30,000 crores in the capex of the railways. In our five-year tenure, 2014-19, including what we have budgeted this year, we would land up spending about 5,29,000 crores, which is about two and a half times or 2.4 times what it was.

But the difference that you will observe, and I can give you a hundred examples standing right here, in the investments done in the last four and a half years, and which we have slated for the next 7-8-10 years, as we have planned the progress of the railways, will show you a huge focus on three aspects – a) safety, absolutely non-compromising effort to improve safety in the railways, b) passenger services, amenities – can we make the passenger experience better, and c) focus on your return on investment – are the lines, are the money that we are putting in really going to get you a good economic return. I mean, there were 14 lines which are going to transport coal, for example, they are all extremely viable lines. They have freight waiting to be transported. There is a huge shortage of coal, large amounts of coal continue to be imported, transport is one of the bottlenecks amongst others, but these lines have been languishing for years and years.

A focused approach on completing those 14 lines, even though they have already had nearly a 3x or 5x cost over-run, but be that as it may, we don’t have a choice anymore. But a completion of these projects in time will help move power, or will help move coal. Coal will help provide power, power will transform the lives of the citizens of India, and Soubhagya within the next4 or 5 months will ensure every willing consumer in the country will get power at his home – every single willing consumer. I have used the word ‘willing consumer’ when we drafted that about two years ago, because if somebody just doesn’t apply for a connection, we should not have a particular journalist go with a mike, shove it up the mouth of the resident of that home, and say but you don’t have power here.

So, clearly, the guy has to be a willing consumer. He has to make an application. But then all of this is intertwined. You can’t give an electricity connection to everybody, unless you are sure at the backend you provided enough power generation and transmission ability. You can’t guarantee power generation unless you make sure you have a project pipeline for thermal, and now for solar, wind, hydro, enough to ensure that we never run out of power and we don’t have power shortages.

And it is this holistic thinking of what is best for the common man, for the poorest of the poor in this country pursuing the agenda that PanditDeendayalUpadhyaya articulated in integral humanism. Prime Minister Modi has focused on a variety of programmes, which collectively bring about not only growth, but truly inclusive growth, which collectively prepare India for sustainable growth in the years ahead, which prepare India with infrastructure – much needed infrastructure – to ensure that people get a good quality of life, simultaneously, making India a power to reckon with in the comity of nations internationally.

And I think it’s this 360-degree approach to issues, which has been a significant shift in policy, significant shift in execution that truly has made a difference to the lives of the people of India. I remember, the promise of universal power, or access to power for every home, was announced by the National Advisory Council – it was the NAC, right? Those days? All those announcements were, in any case, made by the NAC, the Prime Minister did not have much role in that. But Mrs Sonia Gandhi had made an announcement that by 2009 every home will get power. We didn’t see that happening till 2014 and figure seemed to suggest, some reports seemed to suggest that around 2011-12, we had nearly 300 million people without electricity, which is about 55-60 million homes, or 65 million homes.

This government looked at that very systematically in a focused manner, and with a five-year deadline that okay, we are in this term of office, we have five years with us. We focused on fuel supply, focused on generation, ensured that we expand the transmission grid. Today, we have One-nation, One-grid, you can get power across the nation at one price. Power can flow in different directions whenever required, then we worked on the distribution, what we can do to strengthen it. I think nearly $ 20 billion worth of support the central government gave to the states to strengthen the distribution networks.

First focused to make sure every village gets electricity, then looked at the hamlets, the Thanis and Tolas all around the village. Very often people get confused, when we say a village got electrified they say, but I have a thousand villages in my constituency not electrified. Those are actually those adjoining small areas, hamlets around a village, around a revenue village. So, we made sure that we next take electricity to each one of those.

And now in a focused way, we are ensuring that every single home – and I am delighted to share with you, Madhya Pradesh, I don’t know, is there a model code of conduct constraint here? But I don’t think so in Delhi. But Madhya Pradesh has only four days back sent me a message that Madhya Pradeshevery household has got electrified in the state. Bihar is on the anvil, probably, another month, by 30^th November, at best by December, Bihar will have every single home with electricity.

And the story goes on and before we get into the next financial year, we would have had electricity reach every single home.

Cooking gas – who would have imagined that a nation which gave about 120 million gas connections in decades of this programme will give another 120 million in five years. I don’t think anybody would have ever imagined this scale of rollout to ensure that what Mr Modi and his mother, and his sister went through, no other woman in this country will have to go through.

Taking digital technology to the remotest corners of this country within five years is certainly a programme none of us in this room had imagined is feasible in such a short span of time. But dedicated focus on implementation – and you spoke about regulation, I think this government is one government which has kept minimum few regulators, new regulations coming in. We are, on the contrary, trying to see how we can strengthen the existing regulation system or make it easier for regulators today.

For example, I will give you a simple example. Earlier, a decision of the Central Power Regulator (CERC) was not automatically binding all over the country, so if you had a similar issue, which a 100 power plants had, you needed a 100 cases to be decided, discussed, adjudicated, and each one would take a decision, sometimes contrary to each other, then go back to the court, tribunal, then go to the supreme court – and years would pass of indecisiveness.

A regulation was brought in that a central regulator’s decision can automatically flow to all similar cases. This is a minor example I am just sharing with you. What I am only trying to say is that this kind of holistic thinking – Swachhta, a clean India – something which many people ridiculed, little realizing that that was something so dear even to the father of the nation that he said Swachhta is above Godliness, cleanliness is above Godliness.भगवानकीपूजाबादमेंकरेंगेपहलेस्वच्छबनाओअपनेआँगनको, प्रांगणको |

And clearly, all the economists here I am sure will appreciate the impact, the huge social impact a clean India will have even on the economic well-being of this country, on health costs, on the way we think and live. Again, we may have naysayers who will always find fault with everything, but that is where we need a positive thinking community or a positive thinking intelligentsia to be able to articulate all this to the rest of the country, so people don’t get swayed by false propaganda or by false commentary.

I remember, in one of my interviews on a show, UdayBhai will remember it, when I was sitting on the stage and I was questioned about one of these programmes – I don’t know whether it was electricity or Ujjwala – that ‘oh, but so and so place the people have not got electricity.’ And by chance, just like you have a small, I think cashew nut lying a just little ahead of Leelaji, and at that time there was some small piece of paper, smaller than this, which was lying somewhere around, it was much smaller actually. And I said, यारयहप्रोग्रामकेorganisers नेकामअच्छानहींकियाहै, कहाँसफाईभीनहींरखसके 5-स्टारहोटलमेंप्रोग्रामहैऔरयहकचरेकापीसदेखोस्टेजकेऊपरपड़ाहै |

Now is that the view one should take, or one should look at the beautiful….. To my mind, when we are talking of inclusive growth and we are talking of growth reaching to the last man at the bottom of the pyramid, to the remotest village in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, when we are looking at a development of the nation as a whole, particularly North-East India and the eastern parts of India, which have remained deprived of growth for, as our younger sister said, not only decades or centuries, but probably thousands of years. How long after all will we keep remembering Takshashila or Nalanda and all, we will have to look at today and we will have to address the challenges of today. While we are proud of our heritage and tradition, we can draw a lot from that tradition and that heritage, but action will have to be today.

And I think, to my mind, what Mr Modi presented to this country was an action-oriented government, focused on translating his ideas or his vision for a better tomorrow for 1.25 billion people into action on the ground, in ensuring that every single citizen gets the fruits of development, infrastructure reaches every single village in the country. And with that in mind, the vision that he articulated of a New India by 2020, when we turn 75, an India where every single citizen has a roof over his head, an India where every single citizen’s home has a toilet – nearly 82 million toilets have been made in the last four years – 82 million, more than that were made in 65 years.

Where every single home gets electricity round the clock, has clean drinking water, has road access, not only to the village, under our rural roads programme started by My Vajpayee, but access right up to his home; where quality of education and healthcare using modern technology, particularly through the vast spread of digital technologies across the country, we can give good quality healthcare, good quality education to every citizen. Promoting micro, small and medium enterprises in a big way, so that they engage with the formal economy, they get money from the formal banking system and are not dependent on money lenders for their subsistence.

They connect with the digital world also to become providers, through e-commerce, through the GeM portal, through various ways by which an artisan or a craftsman in Varanasi or in Tiruchirappalli can also probably be a supplier globally. That vision being translated into action on the ground has been our mantra for the last five years and towards that mantra, the enormous strides we have made, in some sense, beating every single date that the Sustainable Development Goals had articulated in 2015-16 that the United Nations came out with 17 goals, but most of them culminating somewhere in 2030. But a man in a hurry, at the helm of affairs in India, who believes that every single day lost in the life of a young child in a remote village in India is national capital being wasted – just to bring in a little economist jargon, because I don’t know much of economics. Every single hour of a lady in the house wasted is national capital being wasted. Our resources losing their value.

And, then the prioritizing of issues; after all, unless power reaches every single home, digital cannot follow, quality education cannot follow, connectivity cannot be improved, healthcare cannot be improved. Unless healthcare is provided for, the lifespan or quality of life of a citizen cannot be improved. Given the current status of education, digital is the only way where we can monitor programmes and we can ensure high quality education reach every part of the country.

So, electricity, digital, ensuring healthcare, making the women’s life more comfortable, ensuring that opportunities are provided across the length and breadth of the country, so everybody doesn’t move towards urban agglomerates, you don’t overcrowd the cities. Wherever cities have a crowd, what can we do with that? How can we provide affordable housing to them? What can we do with local transport? Can metros go across the length and breadth of the cities, which are over-crowded?

I mean Mumbai now is planning the 4^th and 5^th metro line, railways is investing nearly 75,000 crores in Mumbai, not because I am from Mumbai, because one-third of the passengers of railways are from Mumbai, out of 22 million passengers, 7 million passengers every day travel in the Mumbai Suburban. You can’t have them losing their lives every day. I have myself hung on to the gate, at the gate to the chain for eight years of my student life, every morning and evening.

And towards that end, this kind of holistic development agenda, which Prime Minister Modi and the government of the day has prepared, has been articulated at various forums. Report card has been presented to the citizens of India every single year, on the 26^th May every year for the last four years. We have gone back to the people with a report card. And the kind of monitoring of all these programmes, the kind of effort to hold people accountable to the success of these programmes, the kind of transparency and corruption-free environment that is being sought to be provided and effort made in that direction, to my mind, is unparalleled when we look at India’s history of seven decades.

And I am very confident that the ideas that come out of such a Conclave, and I have had the chance to read some of the recommendations that were made in your earlier Conclaves, of course, in better surroundings than the one this time. And Iwas looking forward to come to Goa, by the way, this time. I think it’s unfortunate that I haven’t had a chance to actually attend your Conclaves earlier, but I am delighted to see that the kind of recommendations, the kind of ideas that are collated through the exchanges that you have here, the kind of feedback that we get from the speakers or the participants of the Conclaves really help us in policy making, really help us in going back to the drawing board sometimes to relook at what could be done better, what can be done differently. And that has been the differentiating factor of this government, a government responsive to citizen feedback, a government responsive to ideas that come out of even the media, for example, a government where we spend a lot of time engaging with stakeholders to understand what they feel is good for them.

Of course, we have done some things which some people have not found very palatable, but I think that was the need of the hour. Somebody had to bite the bullet, otherwise, we would have had one more government with a business as usual scenario. I am delighted that the governance deficit that we have been able to remove, or I would say reduce substantially, in the last four-four and a half years of this government will certainly prepare India, will certainly empower India for decades and decades of prosperity in the years ahead.

Before I conclude, I would like to correct a mistake I made which my colleague just pointed out. I am delighted to share with you that Bihar has had a 100% household electrification yesterday, a good two months ahead of schedule – something that this government has focused on, time-bound execution of big ideas. What is that word, BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goals), that is what this government likes to take up, really big and very audacious goals. But for us, BHAG is not running away. BHAG for us is participation.

हमसबमिलकरभागलेतेहैंइनबड़ेउद्देश्योंकोपूरीतरीकेसेसफलबनानेमें, यहसरकारकिसीविषयसेभागतीनहींहै, आपसबकेसाथसम्मिलितहोकरभागलेकरसभीकार्यक्रमोंकोसफलबनातीहै | औरयहइससरकारकीभूमिकारहीहैसाढ़ेचारसालकीऔरमुझेपूराविश्वासहैकिआपसबकेजोआइडियाजआयेहैं, जोआपसबकीसोचहैउसकोहमऔरआगेकैसेबढ़ासकेउसमेंयहसरकारसंकल्पितरहेगी |

बहुत-बहुतधन्यवाद |

 

Q&A

Thank you very much Piyushji, please come. We will do a little bit of formality. That was a very impassioned speech about how the role of having the correct ‘neeti’ and ‘niyati’ both is important for inclusive economic growth. Now, I don’t know how much time, I think we have time for just literally two questions from the audience. So, I see one hand there. And please be very short in your question, be very pointed to whom the question is directed.

Q: Hello, this is Murali here. Mr Marathe spoke about moving away from employability to income-generating opportunities and Shamika spoke about investment into soft infrastructure, my question is related to the two. As a part of the software infrastructure, you emphasized on health a lot, but the other area is about education where don’t you think that there is a need now to move away from the current structure of education right at school level to make it more skill and vocation based, whereby what I am trying to suggest is that provide them with a basic education, which leads them to basic mathematics, basic literacy and then at least offer opportunities to the students to take up vocations like say plumbing or electrician’s work or something like that. My thought process is coming from the fact that if somebody is in future going to become a plumber or something, what is that person going to do by reading advanced calculus or trigonometry and stuff like that, which he is currently forced to in schools as he goes around?

A: I may supplement one thing. When Prime Minister was Chief Minister of Gujarat, he had had a study conducted on how many different vocations or skills impact a person’s life from the time a child is conceived till a person dies, or a few days thereafter. If I remember correctly, some 5000 different skills were identified, which touch our lives through our lifespan, which is why the only one Ministry we have started in this five years is the Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Ministry. There is a huge focus on that. But that does not take away the importance of basic education. After all, we have all gone through school; school teaches you certain things like discipline, opens your mind to a certain way of living, working, thinking.

Unfortunately, many schools today don’t have moral science lectures or civics lectures. It’s a very sad thing. I think that’s something we should try and once again bring back very aggressively. Of course, the risk of people saying you are trying to bring in religion and stuff like that, but I think it’s very unfair criticism. I went to a Christian school where there was a lecture on moral science for us, and during that lecture the Christian students would go to the church in my school. So, it was a very beautiful arrangement.

I don’t know how much today in schools we focus on physical education in sports. This government is trying to inculcate the habit of sport in a big way. One of my companies in coal has partnered with Jharkhand government, we have 358 Adivasi and children from the remotest corners of Jharkhand – 358 students, selected through a video-graphed transparent process, who are being trained in that sports academy and I had an occasion to visit it three weeks ago. It was probably one of the most satisfying visits I have had to any of my units. 358 students, there were between 8 and 12, we are picking them young, providing the best of quality of nutrition, healthcare, education, in good schools in the neighbourhood – DAV schools or KendriyaVidyalayas, or Delhi Public School that kind of quality of schools there. But training them up to be sportsperson in whichever field they are interested in.

So, I think you need to develop going forward a mix of formal education, coupled with skill development and vocational training to choose what the person likes, something like the 3 Idiots story, and prepare individuals, and that will provide to my mind millions, if not tens of millions of working opportunities as Satishji rightly said.

Q:Thank you very much. I am concerned that in the quest for GDP growth, we seem to be missing out on monitoring and safeguarding our natural capital, which is our environment, our natural resources, our forests, pasture lands, glaciers, watersheds and everything that the very many self-help groups and cooperative societies that Dr Marathe spoke about so convincingly that they depend on to apply their knowledge and to produce the products,for which he is suggesting that they get a little more than they already do. Now, there is, and has been, for the last 10 to 15 years a focus and a drive in international economics towards bringing in the valuation of ecosystems. This is something that, in fact, even Ministry of Statistics has been participating in, together with UN Statistics. I am associated with UNESCO and we work on this as well. The circular economy concept and the variations thereof, which we find in several of the countries which are post-industrial, are already 10 years to 15 years old. And I am somewhat concerned that we don’t seem to be going in this direction, nor do we seem to be having a discussion about it in a rational way, without saying that GDP growth has to be above all. Mr Minister, I would like to know what you think about this.

A: Well, I had the good fortune to be a part of the delegation that was at COP21 with the Prime Minister, and frankly, that was one day in my life where I really realized what a 56-inch chest is – every single world leader at Paris was looking up to Prime Minister Modi’s leadership to make that agreement happen and to bring about consensus. And I think what we achieved in Paris where we were able to bring about a positive affirmation of climate justice, was probably one of the most important elements of India’s contribution to protect the developing world from, I would say, persecution by the developed world when it comes to balancing the needs of development and the needs of climate change.

Despite the fact that even today, in 2018, India consumes less coal per capita than the United States used to consume in the 1860s – a good 150 years ago, despite the fact that we are at the cusp of a massive thrust of development where we need low-cost energy, which sometimes compromises with the environment – sometimes I said, not always. Despite the fact that we have not contributed to this problem in the first place, despite having 17% of the world population, India’s contribution to this problem is barely 2%, whereas the Europe and America together have contributed over half the carbon emissions that we have up there.

Despite all of this, despite the fact that you and I are trained from childhood that when we leave a room, we switch off the light or switch off the fan otherwise your mother will come in, point it out to you, why is it not off? Whereas you go to any city in the world, be it Sydney, be it Tokyo, be it London, be it New York, Washington, or any other important international city, you will find 100-storey buildings, empty the whole night, office buildings, government buildings, brightly lit up because they look nice. It gives a skyline, it gives beauty to that city, little caring for the contribution to climate change and the carbon emissions that that causes.

Despite all of this, today India has embarked on one of the biggest renewable energy programme ever embarked in the history of mankind. We have taken on a commitment to reduce our contribution of carbon emissions relative to our GDP by 30 to 35%, one of the most aggressive contributions, which no other country in the world has taken up. On a personal note, Prime Minister Modi is looking at trying to do better than that. We have looked at a huge programme for regeneration of our forests and increasing our green cover, creating another two or three billion tonnes of carbon sink. No other country has such an ambitious programme as that.

And despite the fact that the polluters of the world are backing out of their commitments to climate change, India is going ahead, full steam ahead, more aggressively than even what we had committed. And I am happy to share with you, the Indian Railways is not only going to eliminate diesel engines and going for a 100% electrification – first railway in the world, nowhere in the world the railway of our size has 100% electrification. The US is barely 2% electrified.

But apart from the 100% electrification, we will soon be coming out with a 20 GW renewable energy procurement programme, by which in the next 10 years, I hope to make Indian railways a net zero emitter of carbon emission. I dare say no other country in the world has such ambitious plans to protect and preserve the environment while ensuring a better quality of life, while ensuring growth for our people that India has. And we can all be proud of that.

 

 

 

Over the years the success of Swachh Rail, Swachh Bharat has been outstanding and the improvement in cleanliness is reflected through the ‘Swachh Rail Swachh Bharat Cleanliness Report 2018’. The report states that there has been a significant improvement in cleanliness standards across A1 and A stations, with a 17.6% increase in average cleanliness scores as compared to 2017, while 6 zones have showed more than a 20% improvement in cleanliness scores.

Cleanliness has always been an important area of focus at Railways. By taking inspiration from Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Railways has implemented various strategies to improve cleanliness across its entire network. One of the strategies implemented has been running daily muck cleaning trains as per the “Railways Clean Up Drive”. Let me share with you a few facts about these trains:

● These trains are run by the Central and Western Railways to clean garbage dumped along tracks

● Operational on a daily basis between 2 AM and 4 AM when the local trains are not functional.

● 6 JCB machines tasked with cleaning up garbage. Garbage is then dumped onto special rake trains that have 6 coaches

● Each rake can hold up to 300 cubic metres of waste (equivalent to 6,000 gunny bags)

It is imperative that plastic and non-biodegradable waste along Mumbai’s railway tracks is dealt with effectively and without any delays. This is why the Railways has started using JCB machines to keep the tracks clean. Up till March earlier this year, 20 Lakh gunny bags of waste have been cleared from tracks.

I am also proud to share with you all that regular operation of this muck cleaning train has helped Railways remove 90,000 cubic meters of muck in the last 6 months alone(1st April 2018 to 30 September 2018).

Furthermore, Railways has also improved surveillance through the use of CCTVcameras in and around stations to prevent littering on tracks. The Enforcement of IndianRailways (Penalties for activities affecting cleanliness at railway premises) Rules 2012 has also been intensified.

Railways has also started the practice of integrated mechanised cleaningat 520 Railway stations and instructions for bringing more stations under mechanized cleaning have also been issued. It will be extended to another 60 major stations by March 2019.

Another example of how railways is ensuring cleaner tracks can be seen in Delhi, where an Automatic Rail-Mounted Machines to clean muck on tracks have started operations. These machines will be implemented all across India.

Automatic Rail-Mounted Machines

Finally, let me share with all of you how the introduction of Bio-Toiletshas helped in track cleanliness. Earlier the lack of a proper toilet system was responsible for dirty railway tracks. Taking this into account Railways has sped up the implementation of Bio-Toilets across the network.

● 56,087 bio-toilets have been provided in 14,639 coaches during 2017-18, compared to 9,587 bio-toilets introduced in 3,647 coaches during 2004-14

● 26,358 bio-toilets have been provided in 6,965 coaches in 2018-19 (Upto Aug)

– All remaining coaches (~15,000) will have bio-toilets by next year

● Sections are being made free of human waste discharge with trains being commissioned as ‘Green Train Corridors’. 6 sections commissioned during 2016-17 and 21 sections commissioned during 2017-18

Bio-Toilets

I have now been the Minister of Railways for more than a year, and I can say with confidence that cleanliness is a top priority for Railways. The above mentioned points showcase the work being put in to improve cleanliness on tracks. Therefore, to answer your question, yes Railways is focusing on track cleanliness, and the focus is not only in cities like Mumbai but rather every part of the country.

 

Source: https://www.quora.com/Has-Piyush-Goyal-thought-about-clean-drive-of-railway-tracks-especially-within-the-cities-range-like-Mumbai/answer/Piyush-Goyal

 

 

Thank you very much madam. President of the Institute of Cost Accountants of India, CMA Mr. Amit Apte; the vice president of the institute, CMA Balwinder Singh; my good friend, the former past President, the Institute of Cost Accountants of India, Mr. Sanjay Gupta; all the award winners of this very prestigious National Award for Excellence in Cost Management, distinguished ladies and gentlemen.

I find every award ceremony both educative and enlightening and, by and larger, whenever I get an opportunity to recognize the good work that different companies or individuals are doing, I do not hesitate to participate because I genuinely believe good work when recognized, when appreciated, rewarded, awarded can truly empower a person to do better, to continue to do good work. Look at excellence going forward in our chosen field. But it also encourages others to emulate, to aspire for winning awards, going forward. And as was said earlier by the President even if somebody may not have won an award today the efforts do not go unnoticed.

I think we are all a part of a journey, and in that journey one often comes across different curves and turns. We are navigating those turns during our journey. There will always be some hits, there will always be some misses, but those who relentlessly pursue very aspirational goals, big targets, aspire to be the best, look at extraordinary results are always bound to succeed. And I think looking at the quality of awardees today I have no doubt in my mind that each one of them deserved this award today, deserved to be recognized and I congratulate all of them.

There is that American football player, Vince Lombardi, who had once said,‘winning isn’t everything but the will to win is everything.’ And I think that’s what we have recognized today and I am sure going forward, we will have many other companies with the will to win the award in the years to come. And I hope the institute will continue and I was seeing the jury it’s truly a remarkable jury, very-very distinguished and renowned persons in the jury, which only strengthens the confidence that most well-deserving people have been nominated and have been awarded this prize today.

Of course, the institute continues to go from strength to strength.The largest in Asia, the second largest in the world?!! More than 70,000 members, probably half a million students, and as I was giving away the awards I was being told about the number of cost and management accountants who have come up today to receive the awards on behalf of these awardees, the companies. Congratulations to the institute also for bringing out such good talent, for preparing all of us for the challenges of tomorrow.

In fact, their very moto – TamsoMa Jyotirgamaya –‘let there be light,’ in a way, and we are celebrating the festival of Navratri right now, which will culminate going forward inDussehra and then Diwali. So, there can be no better time and no better recognition than the fact that each one of these awardees are beacons in the Indian business world, who show the rest of business, show the rest of the world, show the rest of the country the right path, the path towards success, brightly lit path towards successand nobody better than accountants to understand the difference between success and failure.

My late father used to always tell me while, of course,there are many other parameters of success, but end of the day, one will always have to have a bent of mind, which focuses on financial success and costing, because howsoever good you may work, howsoever good a product you make out unless you have your eye on costing, and that eye should be no less than Arjuna’s eye, focused to make your cost most competitive, make your product truly a product which is of good quality at the right price and that’s the only way one can be successful.

Otherwise, you can make a fancy product, you can make a really beautifully designed, extremely attractive high-quality product, but if you are not going to be competitive in the pricing,if the market is not going to accept that product at the price point you are offering it,it will remain a pipedream.It will never become a product of the masses, a product of mass consumption or a product which will lead to profits or good business going forward.

And in that sense I think you have a very important role to play both as an institute and all your 70,000 members to ensure that we prepare the country to manufacture, to provide services at the right cost point, which is competitive, which adds value, which encourages more business, and at the end of the day the bottom line will obviously speak for the success of any organization.And all the awardees today I am sure have maintained that cutting edge on costing to be recognized today for the good work that they have done.

It’s these ambassadors of your Institute who will ultimately give out the message of the importance of costing to the rest of the world. I personally believe that in my work, both in my work in the private sector whether I have ran industry, or whether I did investment banking, costing has always been one of the most important elements of success or failure. And I can recount so many instances when we have been able to make project successful in government in the last four and half years, when we have kept our focus on cost, when we have ensured that the service that the product that is being procured by the government or given to the people at large is in a cost-effective manner. And I think every government will have to look at maximizing returns through cost-effective implementation of programmes and projects.

I am going in for a program now for 100% electrification of the railways. Now, clearly it’s good for Indian Railways, it’s good for the country, because we will be cutting down on import of diesel and using electricity made from domestic raw materials, and in that domestic raw material I don’t mean only coal, I also mean the sun or wind or waste to energy or hydro, which we are trying to promote in a big way, and which to my mind, thanks to Prime Minister Modi’s big thrust and the large economies of scale that we have been able to bring into our renewable energy programme, have today become more competitive and more attractive than the coal-based power plants that my good friend Mr. Sobti from BHEL is providing.

And mind you, the coal-based power that we are using apart from its impact huge on climate change, apart fromthe damage it causes to the universe, when we are using renewable energy, we are actually locking in a price since it’s largely a capex-based business,there is hardly any opex. I mean the sun does not charge us for rising every day or the rain gods don’t charge us for the rain that they provide, which fill up our dams.

I think the fact that this price gets locked in for 25 odd years is truly a very-very important element of the big thrust we have given to renewable energy. So, our children and our grandchildren after them will continue to get low-cost power for every unit that we generate out of renewable power. And in that sense, many of you may recall the BhakraNangal Dam and those old hydro projects, today we get power from them almost for free, some of it is 20 paisa, some of it is 50 paisa per kilowatt hour.

It was thanks to the vision and foresight at that point of time when these hydro projects were set up. In fact, I feel pained that we have stopped at the capacity that we did. That was the time when land was easier to get, that was the time when we needed more power around the year.If only at that time we had exploited the large amount of potential capacity that hydro had to offer the story in India would have been completely different today.

I am glad that Prime Minister Modi has embarked on this massive renewable energy programme and look at the foresight and vision of Prime Minister Modi. I remember when he first started buying solar power in Gujarat, a lot of people were criticizing that why is he buying solar power which is so expensive, at that point of time solar power if I remember correctly was even 16 rupees a unit.

But Prime Minister Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat was very clear that unless we start that programme we will never be able to achieve scale,and unless we achieve scale the price will never come down, and unless we have large demand in the country we will not be able to make in India. So, with his visionary approach to projects, visionary approach to government programmes he recognized that we will have to take a few a little bit of power at high prices so that the business comes to India, we will have to encourage Make in India through economics of scale by expanding the volume.

And of course, under his leadership this government has also done away with the feed-in tariffs and brought in most transparent auction by which we are procuring this renewable energy power, which has brought down that price to probably 20% of what it used to be a few years ago and maybe one-third of what it used to be when this government came into power in 2014.

And despite some initial resistance, today the whole world recognizes that the project that Prime Minister Modi did to have auction for procurement of renewable energy was truly game changing.It helped us expand our renewable energy manifold. I believe in the last four years, the solar capacity in India has expanded nearly ten-fold, just in four years ten-fold expansion, which has helped economics of scale come in, help bring the cost down and make it truly more viable future for the people of India.

In fact, I had this challenge when we announced hundred percent electrification of Railways, and by the way,those of you who are interested in the costing part of it we will be saving nearly $2 billion every year in terms of the diesel consumption. Now that 2 billion is not only diesel consumption saved, it’s also import saved, foreign exchange saved, it’s also less pollution all over the place. I mean in Delhi, we are in Delhi today, a lot of the pollution is also the trains chugging into Delhi, which are running on diesel.

And the overall investment if we go to see the payback will be five or six years, five or six years the total investment will be paid off.We will have a much-much cleaner environmental impact and we will be saving foreign exchange year on year, and with the rise in global prices, these savings could possibly even grow even further going forward.

But when we were doing this project, there was this question that came up what do we do with the diesel engines that we have, and we have a large number of diesel locomotives. We decided to do some engineering and research on how we can change the diesel engine to electric engine.And ladies and gentlemen, you will be happy to know that we have been able to convert diesel engines to electric engines at somewhere around only Rs 2 crore per engine for locomotive, just about two crore rupees.

And these diesel engines at the end of every 18 years I think used to go in for a complete overhaul, not the periodic overhaul, this was a midlife rehabilitation, MLR they call it, just like you had those in power plants till I became a Minister and I stopped that. So, there wasa midlife rehabilitation where a diesel engine, a polluting diesel engine we were investing Rs 5 crore to give it an extended life of 12 years after the initial. I don’t know if it is 18 years or 25 years, whatever is the original life, and then we were spending five crores in midlife rehabilitation to give it, to extend its life by a few more years.

Against that for only two crore rupees we are converting a diesel engine to a non-polluting electric engine. So, we are saving three crore there and I am sure all of you will appreciate that when we are making a new electric engine it’s like a brand-new engine, every part in that is new. We have removed the combustion engine.We have removed all the parts, the moving parts that were there and for barely two crore rupees we now have a new electric engine.

And for those that we will require for spares, for any potential accident or any time when there is a problem in the electric grid or in our overhead electrification, the spare engines that we will require we will buy new engines which are non-polluting, whose pollution levels are probably one tenth of what our old engines were.

So, we are conscious that even the spares have to be non-polluting, because all of us believe in this government that it’s our duty not only to all of us, but particularly to the children, the next generation and unfortunately here I don’t see too many young children except a few, but I think we owe it to them that we leave behind a better planet than the one we inherited.

And it’s inter-generational equity that demands that we do not mess with the environment, we do not cause more damage to the environment, but we prepare the nation in such a fashion that the children tomorrow don’t stand up and ask us or our children or grandchildren don’t come up to us and say ‘पापाआपलोगोंनेक्याकिया,हमारेदेशकेसाथक्याकिया,कैसादेशछोड़करगएहोहमारेलिए?

And I think that is the duty that is incumbent on all of us or most of us in this room who are in positions where we can contribute to addressing these challenges of climate change, bringing down pollution levels in the country, improving in different forms. Today,Mahindras got an award, they are working on electric vehicles,Tata is working on electric vehicles.Some companies don’t make electric vehicle so they are trying to oppose electric vehicles, but we have decided that we will as a nationbecome a leader, get into the cutting edge of technology on electric vehicles and instead of following what the world does India will lead the world’s efforts on electric vehicles. That’s the plan that this government has drawn up.

Of course, you spoke about the LED program that’s been another program which I believe gives us a lot of satisfaction and that program also rested on basic costing principles. I remember when I became a Minister, these LED bulbs were being purchased in a small measure I think 600,000 bulbs were purchased every year by a company called Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL).It’s a Government of India company, promoted by I think NTPC, Power Finance, Power Grid and maybe REC, these three-four companies have promoted EESL. They used to buy about six lakh bulbs.

If I remember correctly, their procurement price was about Rs.340 was there about something, I have left that Ministry I am probably getting out of the numbers, Rs.341 or something was the price of that bulb, it used to be a 7 W bulb or so. 7 watt LED bulb Rs.341, you add taxes, you add marketing cost, distribution cost, finance cost and all of that. It used to cost them some Rs.550. So, the government of India would give a 100 rupees subsidy and then sell these bulbs to whoever was interested in LED bulbs.

Prime Minister Modi, as I mentioned earlier, is very passionate about climate change and he realizes that every unit of power that you save is more valuable than a unit of power that you generate, given the transmission losses, distribution loss.We just heard one of the companies here has reduced it to 11%, but the nation as a whole is still at 22-23% transmission and distribution losses.

So, effectively when you are producing one unit of electricity, it’s as good as when you are saving one unit of electricity it’s as good as producing 1.3 units of electricity. Every unit saved is equivalent to 1.3 units produced. And therefore, Prime Minister Modi said put in your best effort to save electricity, focus on energy conservation, focus on energy efficiency.

It was around that time that this LED programme came to our knowledge and I remember we launched Ujala, the program to distribute LED bulbs in the country on 5^thof January 2015. After that we started the process of procurement of these bulbs, of course, as is Mr. Modi’s style everything was through transparent auctions, transparent bidding through the computer systems, very-very robust qualification criteria and technical criteria for the quality of the LED bulbs.

I still recall 2015 I had gone to Davos and at one of the lunches I had the chief of Philips sitting next to me.5जनवरीकोलॉन्चकियाथायह22-23-24 जनवरीकीबातहै, because I remember I rushed back from there because President Obama was coming on 25^thof January. So, it’s around few days after the launch. And at lunch you are generally chatting, I was describing to Philips CEO, world CEO, our project to replace every single bulb and we had estimated at that time that we will need to replace about 77 crore incandescent bulbs, those 60W, 80W, 100W bulbs that we all have used,मोटासाजोbulbहोताथा.

I said we are going to replace 770 million bulbs in the next four years with LED and my price point is a double-digit number in rupees, which is about a dollar and a half and I had aanimated discussion, describing my plans going forward. The conversation ended, I came back.

1^stMay, 2015 we sold our first bulbs and then the process of procurement started and the entire procurement was resting on principles of costing. I am sharing this with you because it is actually thanks to the work that all of you are doing that the country is going to benefit from the LED program. And I remember when I did the costing and looked at the program and I sat with all the stakeholders, people who used to supply these bulbs.

I said I expect this price to come down to double-digit, and I remember one of them asking ‘what do you mean by double-digit?’ I said I mean double-digit, less than hundred is double digit, anything up to 99 from I think Rs. 10 is double-digit. And if I remember correctly, I was ridiculed a lot after that this guy must be some crazy rookie new Minister who doesn’t know what he’s talking, Rs.341 how would it become Rs.99.

I remember we had a series of procurements कभीएककरोड़ख़रीदतेथे, कभीदोकरोड़ख़रीदतेथे, price gradually started coming down, but we sold at Rs.130. We used to take Rs.10 upfront and I think for 11 and 12 months Rs.10 every month. Idea was that the power saving should be more than the cost of that bulb.What the person pays every month should be less than what he will save in his electricity bills.

And any of you will appreciate even if though you may not be engineers that if against a single 60W bulb you use a 7W bulb your electricity consumption is bound to be down by 85-87% स्वपतिजीउसमेंतोकोईदोरायनहींहोसकतीहै. I mean pure… anybody can say a 60W or a 90W bulb ifreplaced by a 7 or 9 watt bulb,your power consumption has to come down.

Initially, we sold at a loss, which today some of you may criticize that it’s predatory pricing. But we had the courage of conviction that as economies of scale go up, we had the confidence that we are doing everything honestly, so the price of corruption will also reduce from our procurement cost.

When I sat with the stakeholders I realized where the pain points were, one of which I will share with you, the payment is to be made in five years, who the hell is going to trust that their product being sold to government and payment coming in five years and then there are collateral costs recovering those payments, unfortunately, in the old days.

We changed all of that. We said you supply the bulb, this is the qualifying criteria, only if you qualify you can bid, bids will all be electronic opened in front of – rather the computer will throw them out in front of all the participants, payment will be in your bank account through RTGS on the 30^th day. No five-year payment, no one-year payment, no nothing.

You give a bank guarantee for your quality and we had the confidence that we are selecting good companies, we have robust specs for quality assurance. So, nobody can pass on crap to us. You give us bank guarantee for your quality, subsequently, I even change that, you give bank guarantee for your quality and based on your rating people have started supplying millions of bulbs. We started giving back bank guarantee also one-third one-third or quarter quarter every year depending on the warranty period and we put all of this into public domain.

And I am happy to share with you that I think the last figure I read few days back, against 77 crore bulbs that we had planned to replace in four years we have still not completed four years, 1^stMay 2015 four years will get completed, so we are about threeand a half years now, the country has already replaced over 120 crore bulbs.

120 करोड़केऊपरजिसमें EESL alone which drove the project initially has sold about 31 crore bulbs. The private sector has pitched in with about 91 crore bulbs until August. And in the whole process forget two digit the prices fell at one point to Rs.38 plus taxes for the bulb, Rs.38, 87% reduction on the price of LED bulbs. And you know who bid that Rs.38, any guesses? Philips – the world’s largest lighting company and now they make them in India.

And about a year ago I get a call or a request letter from Philips that the CEO wants to meet me, the same guy with whom I had lunch many years ago. I thought कुछप्रॉब्लमहोगयीहोगीतोI asked all my officers किभाईरिपोर्टदोक्याहै, what has been the track record, are there some payment problems, do we have some issues pending.We found nothing. Normally, you go to the Minister only when you have a problem.

Still I gave him time out of respect, you know what he came and told me, he said Mr. Goyal I have no work with you, I have only come to meet you today to acknowledge that when you met me at Davos in 2015 and shared your vision, the vision of your Prime Minister on LEDs,in my mind, I thought you really have no clue of what you are saying, you don’t understand the lighting business at all and you are going down on a completely wrong path, you will never be able to achieve this project. I have only come in to acknowledge that what you have done in India, you as in not PiyushGoyal, what all of you in India have done replacing all your bulbs with LED bulbs.And by the way, that is saving all of you in your electricity bills, cumulatively as a nation today,we are saving over 50,000 crores every year, saving in our electricity bills all of us, and if any of you hasn’t replaced with LED bulbs your home, your office, your factories take back their…

There can be no better cost proposition than putting in LED lighting, the fastest payback for an investment. महिंद्रासेकोईहैनाI have once told PawanGoenka from Mahindra about this project. So, he said yeah we also have a plan in three years, we are going to replace all our lighting with LED. I said you must be a bad managing director Pawanji, he said क्याहुआ? I said do it in three months, why are you doing it in three years.आपतीनसालकाजितनालॉसकररहेहो this will pay back in three or four or six monthsऔरbusinessesमेंतोहमबिजलीकेलिए10रुपये 12 रुपयेदेतेहैं.

All of us in our offices or our homes at the level at which I assume you are consuming you must not be paying less than 8, 10, 12 rupees per unit. Your payback must be one or two months probably. And then I am glad to share with you that he reported back to me that when he studied it and got into detail they actually, the entire Mahindra Group replaced all their lights with LED in probably six or nine months after that.

There is huge potential for all of you to help us whether in government or in business, do these type of dramatic changes using elementary principles of costing and saving businesses wasteful expenditure, saving government wasteful expenditure and helping the nation as a whole prosper, helping every Indian in the country have a better future for them.And I am sure, this contribution of cost accountants will never go unnoticed, will never go unappreciated.

We will continue to award the good work that is done in cost management by all of you and I am sure this effort and the effort that all of you continue to do in the years ahead will be like your logo तमसोमाज्योतिर्गमय.It will show the light to the rest of the world, just like our LED program has actually become a beacon light worldwide for low-cost LED lighting and at scale, and countries in Europe, countries around the world today are emulating the Indian example.

Similarly, in different aspects of costing, let our cost and management accountants show the world better and better techniques, better and better ways to become cost-effective, to become competitive, to become more profitable and also give customers a better deal going forward.

Thank you very much.