Speaker 1: This is Dana Perkins and you're listening to Switched on
Speaker 1: the BNAF podcast. So last week BNF held its annual
Speaker 1: summit in New Delhi, but this year was different because
Speaker 1: it took place alongside the B twenty or Business twenty meetings.
Speaker 1: These are the official business community Engagement forum for the
Speaker 1: G twenty meetings. Among the attendees was Amaitab Khant, the
Speaker 1: SHEHRPA of this year's G twenty summit in New Delhi.
Speaker 1: Amatab has had a long career in Indian public service,
Speaker 1: with many roles focused on promoting business interests in the country.
Speaker 1: He formerly served as the Secretary for the Department of
Speaker 1: Industrial Policy and Promotion, the Chairman and CEO of the
Speaker 1: Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corporation, the Secretary for the Indian Ministry
Speaker 1: of Tourism, the Managing Director of the Kerala State Industrial
Speaker 1: Development Corporation, and most recently the current CEO of the
Speaker 1: Government of India's think tank n t Ayak. At the summit,
Speaker 1: BNAF CEO John Moore sat down with Amatab on stage
Speaker 1: for an interview. Together, they discussed his vision for India
Speaker 1: as a large scale green hydrogen producing nation. India's expanding
Speaker 1: electric vehicle sector and how a well designed circular economy
Speaker 1: might feed into it, and how attracting private capital investment
Speaker 1: will help to decarbonize India's hard to abate sectors. As always,
Speaker 1: if you like this podcast, make sure to subscribe to
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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to make us more discoverable
Speaker 1: by others. And now let's listen to John's conversation with
Speaker 1: A G twenty shirpup Am tab Kant.
Speaker 2: And now it is my great pleasure to ask to
Speaker 2: come on the stage, Ami tab Can mister Ami tab
Speaker 2: Kent G twenty Scherpa, former CEO of Nitti Ayog, So
Speaker 2: please come and join me. You joined us for our
Speaker 2: first event here twenty seventy, so thank you very much
Speaker 2: for sticking with us. It's been an interesting last few years,
Speaker 2: not least for COVID. So we had some virtual events.
Speaker 2: And actually you just put out a book and this
Speaker 2: is the book. When I knew about it, Amazon delivered
Speaker 2: in a day or two and it's a fascinating book.
Speaker 2: And I suppose question one is why did you write
Speaker 2: a book? Why did you think a book was required.
Speaker 3: So the book is about you know, it's on seventy
Speaker 3: five years of business and enterprise in India. And I've
Speaker 3: been a great believer that if India has to grow
Speaker 3: at high rates of eight to nine percent per annum
Speaker 3: for the next three decades and lift a vast segment
Speaker 3: of our population above the poverty line, is the private
Speaker 3: sector which has to be the key driver of growth,
Speaker 3: and the government must retreat in a range of areas.
Speaker 3: And you know, on the eve of our colonization, actually
Speaker 3: we had twenty four percent of the global GDP. By
Speaker 3: the time we became independent, it had come down to
Speaker 3: just five percent in nineteen forty seven, and then you know,
Speaker 3: the British Raj was replaced by a lot of license raj.
Speaker 3: So I really believe that now we are the fifth
Speaker 3: largest economy in the world. We are accelerating the pace
Speaker 3: of growth in the by twenty twenty seven will be
Speaker 3: the third largest economy in the world. But the important
Speaker 3: thing is to raise per capita incomes in a very
Speaker 3: big way, and that would require India to have three
Speaker 3: decades of high growth rate. We've grown at high rates
Speaker 3: but for limited period of five to six years. So
Speaker 3: we need to grow at eight percent plus for three
Speaker 3: decades and that's critical to be a way developed and
Speaker 3: an advanced economy. And they're the role of private sector
Speaker 3: in energy transition, in sunrise areas of growth, a vast
Speaker 3: range of areas. The disruption has to come in from
Speaker 3: the private sector.
Speaker 2: And how do you you mentioned private sectors being an
Speaker 2: engine for that growth. How do you think the private
Speaker 2: sector and government can best work together because it needs
Speaker 2: to be a partnership. How do you think about that?
Speaker 3: So if you look at recent times, the government has
Speaker 3: actually acted as a facilitator and a catalyst, and it's
Speaker 3: done a lot of job in the central government, a
Speaker 3: lot of job of cleaning up rules, regulation procedures. Acts
Speaker 3: is scrapped, fifteen hundred laws. It's done a huge amount
Speaker 3: of work on ease of doing business. It's brought in
Speaker 3: the Goods and Services Tax, which replaces about twenty eight
Speaker 3: different taxes and cesses, broad in the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code,
Speaker 3: the Real Estate Regulation Act. It brought down corporate taxes
Speaker 3: to global benchmarks.
Speaker 4: It's done a lot.
Speaker 3: It's done a lot now it gave away a lot
Speaker 3: in terms of resources, so that corporate balance sheets could
Speaker 3: improve when it reduced corporate taxes. It's now important that
Speaker 3: the private sector really in the post COVID era, puts
Speaker 3: in resources for investments and drives further growth.
Speaker 4: This is critical.
Speaker 3: The second key thing is I think what the central
Speaker 3: government has done, the same thing has to be done
Speaker 3: by a number of state governments. Because India's very large countries.
Speaker 3: It's bigger than twenty five countries of Europe. So you
Speaker 3: need states to become the key driver of bringing in
Speaker 3: ease of doing business and driving those states. Urbanization will
Speaker 3: be a very key driver of growth in the coming years.
Speaker 3: And my belief is that India needs to fire on
Speaker 3: all cylinders.
Speaker 4: It can be just services.
Speaker 3: You need to grow on manufacturing, you need to raise
Speaker 3: your agriculture productivity, and you need to do sustained sustainable urbanization.
Speaker 2: For a long time, any thoughts on government companies, government
Speaker 2: owned state owned enterprises.
Speaker 3: So I've been you know, several state companies have done
Speaker 3: very well. But I've been a long term believer and
Speaker 3: that's the government philosophy that government should remain in.
Speaker 4: Just four key sectors.
Speaker 3: Other sectors government should actually get out and government should
Speaker 3: ensure that the private sector steps in in many of these.
Speaker 4: Key areas of growth.
Speaker 3: So a few sectors where it's critical government should remain.
Speaker 3: Otherwise it should be there should be private sector play
Speaker 3: in India.
Speaker 2: Okay, and let's talk a little bit about innovation, because
Speaker 2: you talk a lot about innovation and you've personally been
Speaker 2: involved in a lot of legislation for innovation over the years.
Speaker 2: What do you think of the real strengths India has
Speaker 2: in innovation space.
Speaker 3: Let's say, so, I think you know one of the
Speaker 3: biggest innovations India has done. If you look at the
Speaker 3: last two and a half decades, most innovation has come
Speaker 3: out of tech companies. Has come out of Google, It's
Speaker 3: come out of Microsoft, Apple, Amazon in the western part
Speaker 3: of the world, and it's come out of Tencent and
Speaker 3: Ali Baba in China. But in India's case, we took
Speaker 3: a different model of digital public infrastructure where the public
Speaker 3: interest layer was created by the government on top of
Speaker 3: which we've allowed private sector to innovate. And these are
Speaker 3: open source models, these are open APIs, They are interoperable.
Speaker 3: So you know, between twenty fifteen twenty seventeen, we opened
Speaker 3: five hundred and fifty million bank accounts. Today India does
Speaker 3: about eleven x more fast payments than what USA and
Speaker 3: Europe do. We do forty six percent of the real
Speaker 3: time fast payments in the world.
Speaker 4: We do four x of what China does.
Speaker 3: So we've created a whole range of digital public infrastructure,
Speaker 3: including an education, digit Loca, many other So that's a
Speaker 3: huge innovation. But the other big thing that's happened is
Speaker 3: that we started the startup India movement. In twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: there were just about one hundred and fifty six startups.
Speaker 3: Today you have a over about one hundred thousand startups
Speaker 3: and many of these startups actually what they did then.
Speaker 3: Once we'd created the digital public infrastructure layer, you're seeing
Speaker 3: many startups doing a cash less, a paperless credit.
Speaker 4: It's all cash less, paperless.
Speaker 3: There are many other startups who then went in and
Speaker 3: started creating wealth. So you have a startups like Zeroeda,
Speaker 3: grow up Stock which started creating taking the stock market
Speaker 3: into Tire to tire three cities. Almost twenty nine percent
Speaker 3: of the stock market is controlled by a young startup
Speaker 3: like Zeroeda. Then you had a number of young startups
Speaker 3: like go Digit and Acho which took insurance a cash less,
Speaker 3: paperless you can get an insurance policy in India in
Speaker 3: less than a minute to all people in rural areas.
Speaker 4: So what we've seen is huge disruption, huge.
Speaker 3: Innovation on the back of the digital public infrastructure.
Speaker 2: Right and in the book you talk about platforms and
Speaker 2: innovative ecosystems. I want to say a little bit more
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, actually, the model that we've created, if you look
Speaker 3: at the world, the model that we've created is that
Speaker 3: every Indian has a digital identity, every Indian has a
Speaker 3: bank account, every Indian has a mobile and the cost
Speaker 3: of acquisition of the customer has fallen way radically. In India,
Speaker 3: it used to be about thirty five dollars to acquire
Speaker 3: a customer. It's come down to one dollar because you
Speaker 3: can now acquire a customer on the basis of his
Speaker 3: digital identity. In Europe and USA, it's all paperwork, it's
Speaker 3: all you know.
Speaker 4: So it's still over one hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: To acquire a customer. The cost of acquisition of customer has.
Speaker 4: Fallen very radically.
Speaker 3: The challenge in the world today is that you have
Speaker 3: about four billion people who do not have an identity.
Speaker 3: There are two and a half billion people who do
Speaker 3: not have a bank account. One thirty three countries in
Speaker 3: the world do not have a fast payment mechanism. So
Speaker 3: if you want to provide, if you want to transform
Speaker 3: the world, world, you need to take the India model
Speaker 3: of digital public infrastructure to the rest of the world
Speaker 3: and transform many of the global South countries to really
Speaker 3: uplift them.
Speaker 4: Very sharply great.
Speaker 2: It's great to see that sort of business model approach
Speaker 2: to SCALU.
Speaker 3: And it's all private sector innovation, it's all young startups,
Speaker 3: they're all national assets of India.
Speaker 2: And are there clearly you're very passionate about platforms. Are
Speaker 2: there any other innovations that you think we should keep
Speaker 2: our eye on that you think are particularly important?
Speaker 3: John, I think one of the biggest stories the energy
Speaker 3: transition story of India, and I think it's important to
Speaker 3: realize this that we do about one hundred and eighty
Speaker 3: five gigaward of clean energy. Now we are on the
Speaker 3: road to do major transformation. My personal view is that
Speaker 3: not merely renewables, but India will do path breaking work
Speaker 3: in greenheight rogen. Will be the cheapest producer of green
Speaker 3: hydrogen simply because of climatic conditions. The size and scale
Speaker 3: of India and very good young entrepreneurship. And actually my
Speaker 3: view is that the green hydrogen mission etc. When implemented,
Speaker 3: will lead to actually India becoming And you know, the
Speaker 3: challenge is that even if you were to do all
Speaker 3: your electricity clean electricity, it will be only twenty percent
Speaker 3: of energy.
Speaker 4: You need to.
Speaker 3: Really decarbonize hard to abate sectors like refinery, steel, cement, fertilizer,
Speaker 3: all that.
Speaker 4: That can't be done with electricity. You need green hydrogen.
Speaker 3: And my view is that by twenty forty seven India
Speaker 3: will be a global champion of green hydrogen, will actually
Speaker 3: be instead of importing two hundred billion worth of fossil
Speaker 3: fuel which we do now, will be actually exporting energy.
Speaker 2: So a couple of other questions around the transition now
Speaker 2: we've made to the energy transition CCS. So what are
Speaker 2: your thoughts on CCS. It's a devised opinion often.
Speaker 3: So my view is that we need to do more
Speaker 3: work technologically on CCS to bring down to make it
Speaker 3: commercially viable. I think we need to do more work
Speaker 3: in terms of establishing its commercial viability. I think more
Speaker 3: resources need to be put in there. You know, the
Speaker 3: challenge for the world is that there's no shortage of resources.
Speaker 3: I mean, you talked about a couple of trillion the
Speaker 3: world is. The world is today sitting on three hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty trillion dollars. Pension funds and investment asset companies
Speaker 3: are sitting on one hundred and fifty trillion dollar. We
Speaker 3: need to de risk some of these areas to allow
Speaker 3: more resources to flow in.
Speaker 4: So no shortage of funds.
Speaker 3: But my view is that long distance transportation etc. Will first,
Speaker 3: you know, and refinery. For instance, India consumes twelve percent
Speaker 3: of the gray hydrogen, so the first route will be
Speaker 3: green hydrogen because will be easier to make it commercially doable.
Speaker 4: It's technologically established, so.
Speaker 3: Green hydrogen, and it's in its liquid form green ammonia,
Speaker 3: which can then be exported to the rest of the world.
Speaker 3: Green hydrogen will be the first bet. A little more
Speaker 3: work on ccs is required.
Speaker 2: Okay, great, that's very clear, thank you. And then the
Speaker 2: other key key area of circularity. Again, that's another area
Speaker 2: that devines people. What are your thoughts on there?
Speaker 3: So I'm a great believer that circularity is critical. It's
Speaker 3: not possible to do complete new areas of growth. All
Speaker 3: these are new areas of growth. I mean you have
Speaker 3: a scenario in China where two wheeler, where vehicles, four
Speaker 3: four where wheeler electric vehicles are all dumped.
Speaker 4: They become the biggest dumping grounds today in China.
Speaker 3: I mean cities are after cities are just become dumping
Speaker 3: grounds of two wheelers, three wheelers and four wheelers because
Speaker 3: every year you have a new electric model coming in
Speaker 3: I mean lithium, cobalt nickel.
Speaker 4: We are not importers.
Speaker 3: We've not taken over colonies and countries in Africa to
Speaker 3: do mining. But you will need battery and it's very
Speaker 3: important that when you do battery for both on the
Speaker 3: electric side, on the mobility side and for the mobile
Speaker 3: telephony side.
Speaker 4: We need a vast number of.
Speaker 3: Young Indian companies which get into the business of recycling.
Speaker 3: But more important than that is that we need from
Speaker 3: the design process itself, and the design process is very
Speaker 3: critical that.
Speaker 4: Later to do it will be very difficult.
Speaker 3: You need from the design process itself in the manufacturing
Speaker 3: that everything must become an input into another production level
Speaker 3: and that will require a huge amount of innovative work
Speaker 3: to be done to drive circularity. It can be done
Speaker 3: by rules and regulations too much. If you put in
Speaker 3: too many rules, the rules hamper ease of doing business.
Speaker 3: You need to push the limits on innovation.
Speaker 2: And we talked about a few different technological options. If
Speaker 2: you're speaking to entrepreneurs or business people funding entrepreneurs, which
Speaker 2: sectors do you think right now in India? Which are
Speaker 2: the ones that you would really focus on.
Speaker 3: I think India is the cusp of electric mobility revolution.
Speaker 3: Everybody will buy electric vehicle. Whether we've already done a
Speaker 3: substantial amount on two wheelers three wheelers, is India consumes
Speaker 3: about seventy percent of our vehicles are two wheelers, and
Speaker 3: we've done a lot on two wheelers and three wheelers.
Speaker 3: We are now going to buy fifty thousand, almost close
Speaker 3: to fifty thousand electric buses. So this is a huge
Speaker 3: opportunity for making India in electric buses. Every two three
Speaker 3: tier cities will only have electric buses. Actually, then that
Speaker 3: opens up the opportunity for vast number of fast chargers
Speaker 3: in India, and that opens up a vast opportunity because
Speaker 3: India is a great automobile manufacturer. When the world it
Speaker 3: is moving from combustion to electric, you're moving from two
Speaker 3: hundred parts to just twenty five paths, and India needs
Speaker 3: to become a global champion of electric vehicle manufacturing to
Speaker 3: export the rest.
Speaker 4: Of the world.
Speaker 2: Great again, very clear, emaability is to your top choice.
Speaker 2: And then one final question, we have one minute left.
Speaker 2: You talked about growth earlier and actually the World Bank
Speaker 2: says GDP in India will probably five times bigger by
Speaker 2: mid century. We've talked about decarbonizing. What would be your
Speaker 2: key message for the leaders in this room for green growth?
Speaker 2: How to grow and decarbonize? What would be the key
Speaker 2: thing for them to think about.
Speaker 3: So I'm a great believer that the only way India
Speaker 3: should grow net zero's net positive for India, it's important
Speaker 3: to go digital and go green. If you go digital
Speaker 3: and go green, you will attract your companies, will attract
Speaker 3: greater value, You'll be able to attract capital from the
Speaker 3: rest of the world. So get down to just focusing
Speaker 3: on going green. There's no shortage of capital in the world.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you.
Speaker 3: I mean the world is flushed with funds right now.
Speaker 3: All you need to do is to push the limits
Speaker 3: on going green.
Speaker 2: Great, So they're aligned going green and being successful as
Speaker 2: the same. Yeah, and being digital. Thank you very much,
Speaker 2: so thank you. You joined us seven years ago, you
Speaker 2: join us again today. Please join me in thanking, mister Cant.
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