india could switch to 100 evehicles much before 2030 because cost advantage will significantly boost demand roads transport and highways minister nitin gadkari has said gadkari whos also the minister for river development and water resources said hes creating a water grid on the lines of power grid to end the perennial problem of frequent droughts and flooding in different parts of country once and for all edited excerpts from an interview with et automakers are sceptical about the governments plan to move to 100 electric mobility by 2030 what have you told them the principle of any market is demand and supply the cost advantage of evehicles is so huge that once companies make good quality affordable cars available people would buy it because its economically viable that would expand the market on its own as compared to traditional fuel the benefits of electric vehicles are immense the time has come that we should be getting serious about cutting down vehicular pollution auto companies say the government has no clear vision on emobility as charging infrastructure is not in place when solar energy came the tariff was rs 165 per unit now its rs 25 that time also companies were reluctant automakers dont want change they have made one dye technology and theyre manufacturing the same products through that dye to move to 100 electric companies have to change machinery take risk mercedes and audi have come to me that they can offer bs vi fuel or electric whatever the need is mahindra and nissan are already offering evehicles were running several such taxis in nagpur now you have companies competing for government tenders to supply evehicles it all depends on the scale which we already have i think we are capable of moving to 100 electric mobility even before 2030 is a clear policy on evehicles expected soon we are soon coming up with the evehicles policy that will provide for setting up of charging stations these charging stations would itself have huge employment opportunities the government can fund individuals to set up charging stations cabinet should clear the policy very soon theres been a slowdown in economic growth post demonetisation exporters and small businesses are complaining that gst is hurting their businesses there have been initial hiccups but things are gradually improving as far as implementation of gst is concerned there are structural changes happening in the economy and thats why we have these temporary problems will the fund crunch hit governments ambitious highway construction targets theres no fund crunch in my department i can raise money from epfo employees provident fund organisation lic life insurance corporation of india and other funds we can also get nhai national highways authority of india listed that plan is currently being prepared then were monetising existing nhai highways through the tolloperatetransfer model the tenders for the same would be out in a day or two well be raising rs 6500 crore by leasing 11highways we have 100 such highways in