 Well, thank you all so much for joining us for this panel. And I have to say, it's rare to get a panel as high-powered as the one we have here, because this really is Indian bureaucracy, all the top elements right here with us. It's sometimes said that it's a bureaucracy that's really been governing India for more than 100 years. And that's probably as true now as it is before. So we have with us people representing various facets of Indian bureaucracy. And they've been doing various different roles from it, from the people out here, from running the railways, to running Indian transportation, to running the Indian telecom sector, to being in charge of foreign investment and how industrial policy can be better promoted. And the person who's in charge of planning and leading the whole thing, they're all here with us. So without any further ado, let me just introduce the panelists that we have. Amita Abkant, Chief Executive Officer, National Institute of Transforming India. Of course, Neethi Ayog is one of the main organizations that spearheading a lot of the changes that we are talking about. Arun Aswantarajan is the Secretary Department of Telecommunications. One of the most crucial sectors, I think, for a lot of the new technologies and others that we are talking about, really been responsible for transforming the face of India. The mobile phone is most people's preferred device these days, and probably more important than anything else in their lives, so you're in charge of all of that. Ashwin Ilohani is the chairman of the Board of Indian Railways. It's Indian Railways, of course, one of the most important areas in the economy. And if railways is important, so of course, there's road transport and highways, so we have you using Malik, their Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. And finally, Ramesh Abhishek is the Secretary Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. Thank you all so much for being with us. The entire steel frame of building India is here. Maybe Amitabh, if I could get you to start off. At the various levels of bureaucracy that you also have represented, is it still as true today as it was in the days of the British Raj and in the high days of the IAS, that the bureaucracy pretty much is responsible for taking India forward? And I might add, sometimes holding India back a little bit, and I'm talking about Red Deep. Well India's very functional, very vibrant democracy. It's an elected democracy. And the bureaucracy works in partnership with the elected government. It's the vision of the elected government that has to be translated on ground by the bureaucracy. Very many of the things that we do is to really implement projects on ground, but we work in very close partnership with the political system. And actually in the last few years, many of the things that we've tried to do in recent times, like pushing for radical changes in terms of biometrics, or pushing for electric vehicles now, or pushing for artificial intelligence, which he would be doing, or pushing for road construction, rapid rate of road construction, taking it to 22 kilometers a day, or Ashwini trying to bring in radical changes in the functioning of the railway, is all firstly trying to create a lot of, we are an agent of change, because we are trying to bring in a lot of disruption in the government functioning, in terms of taking India forward. But we are also very positive instruments of change in terms of constructing of roads, construction of railways. So sometimes people, you know, people on the other side of the fence may think that, you know, the bureaucracy tends to be status-coestern nature. But the fact remains that the government has grown rapidly. It's growing at about, India's growing at about 7.6%. And the challenge for bureaucracy is to accelerate that pace of growth, take it to even higher levels over the next three decades of, for the next three decades. You know, it's interesting you say that, because you're right, bureaucracy has often been called status-coestern. Status-coestern, sometimes the government's been accused of not moving fast, and of not doing enough big banks. Right now you're having exactly the opposite allegation being made that, how many big banks are you guys gonna do in a nine to 10 month period? And are you doing so many big banks that you've almost sort of nuked the Indian economy in the entire process? Obviously I'm talking about demonetization immediately after followed by GST, and who knows what else is around the corner. Rhea Rao. Yeah, Rhea Rao. But you're David. I can think of lots and lots of big banks coming. So I see Chandrajit Banerjee out there and the audience and many others from industry. You keep saying bureaucracy needs to move faster, government needs to be faster. Is the government moving too fast? I mean, have you done too many big banks? No, the problem is that the government is moving very rapidly, that the private sector's become too status-coestern now. You know, because you know when you, I mean you're asking for, you're asking for the big bank and when you do structural changes, I mean major structural changes, you make India into a one tax, one country, you push for, you know, making India more formal economy, you push for far more transparency in land transactions. You know, I mean, these are structural changes being made with the perspective of the next two to three decades for India. And it's important if India has to grow at high rates or if India must, you can't be a $10 trillion economy with half your economy being a black economy. It's not feasible. You can't grow with several layers of tax. So these are major structural changes and I think we need to take a long-term perspective on this. Okay, who else wants to come in on that? Bureaucracy is moving much faster and industry is almost becoming status-coest. Is that a? Actually, if you see the kind of challenges that our economy has over decades, so much more needs to be done. We have an infrastructure that needs to be much, much better than what it is. We don't have any ease of doing business. I mean, let's set the better. We need to have tax policies which actually incentivize manufacturing in the country and not imports. We have a large young population with large demographic dividend, but we need them skilled. All these are huge challenges. With so much of work being done, we have actually been able to skill 11 million people in the last three years and our challenge is to skill 400 million people. So when we are talking about the government going too fast, you just look at the kind of things that need to be done, the magnitude of the world that needs to be done. Highways, the speed has picked up. Railways, I mean, 30% of the goods are being transported by railways. It is 10 times of the cost of transporting through, I mean, one-tenth of the cost of highway. 70% of the goods are going through road, virtually no river transport. I think we need to go very, very fast on so many things. We have done so much of work on ease of doing business, but that's just the beginning. People are saying that there are so many things that need to be addressed. So maybe we have done only 20% or 30% of the world that needs to be done. So while some people may think that some lot of things are happening, which are happening, actually, I think we need to move much faster on so many things. And people have no patience, actually, because they are so fed up of this lethargy, this sloth, corruption, this bad infrastructure. They're just fed up. So I think the government and bureaucracy are moving quite fast and rightly so. So the speed is a good thing, even if it causes short-term disruption and dislocations. Sometimes the problem with too much speed, of course, is that not all policies are completely thought of. I mean, that's also nothing wrong with it. Like at the JST, now there's talk which is taking place as we speak about how can we fix some of the things that actually went wrong in the rush to implement it quickly. Is that okay? Is that something we should accept? See, one of the hallmarks of the government today is, it's very responsive and sensitive to what people think and say. A lot of implementation is being done of a lot of policies, a lot of reforms are being done. But the regular consultation with stakeholders, regular feedback is being taken. And the government is not cassette or inflexible that nothing is being done about the feedback. So many changes are being made. I think the important thing is to listen to people, do something about it, fix the problems, but you cannot deviate from the road that you have taken, that you have to make structural reforms in the economy, you just can't stop things. It's so much easier to not do GST. So much easier, people will be happy with 7.5% growth, but do you want to grow at 10%, 12%? For that you need to do some fundamental changes in the economy. But I think the government has beaten the bullet and they have taken a tough decision and that is good in their country's interest. All right, that's really interesting and a good way of putting it. If I could turn to you next, Arunaji, because yours is another sector which has played such an important role already in transforming India. As I said, the mobile phone is, for most people, an extension of their lives. Very few people can imagine life without a mobile phone. You can imagine life without lots of things, but not life without your mobile phone. But as that keeps happening, as changes keep coming, questions will come and right now there is a lot of distress in the sector, a lot of indebtedness is there, companies are shutting down, jobs are being lost. So how should people view the way the sector is proceeding right now and progressing? Vikram, I just want to take up what you had spoken about a little earlier. And I think somewhere in the recent past, India's just crossed an inflection point. One, there's exploding aspiration and a government has taken charge which wants to deliver quickly. And people have waited for 70 long years and there is still so much to be done. So I think it's the pace of acceleration that we've seen that is driven by the desire to respond to the kind of aspirations that we're seeing all around. And certainly in that, I think the bureaucracy has to do much more. And I think if the bureaucracy is not doing its due diligence, then the bureaucracy is squarely to be blamed. But the private sector also needs to do much more because what has not happened in these last 70 years is that all our goods and services, all that we've been trying to do has largely been targeted at about 200 million people. There are another 800 million people out there and whether it's the public sector or the private sector, we really need to start responding to those aspirations. The telecom sector is a good case in point because as long as it was trying to service 30 million people, you know it never grew. Then suddenly they reoriented themselves and of course the liberalization policies played a big role in that. And then when they realized that they actually had to service a market of one billion, then they started thinking of product innovation, service innovation, efficiency and all of that. And that's how it's grown. But even in the telecom sector, what we are seeing now is in my view firmly a temporary phenomenon because we still have to do 80% more. We haven't even begun to scratch the surface of data. We're all saying data is the new oil. The data explosion has just begun. So I think there's a lot more to be done and India is a very vibrant, robust market. And therefore I think both the medium term and long term prospects are very robust. So that's another example of, for example you'll have new players coming inside and suddenly data prices crash, everything crashes. Usage takes off 10x growth in data consumption in a 10-11 month period. Flip side of that is the disruption that we were talking about. There are companies going fast, jobs being lost and the rest of it. In your view is it important to manage the change and say, look, we have to go and help for leather, proceed really, really fast. And if there are casualties along the way, then that's just something we have to deal with, including companies complaining and saying, it's been unfair. Look, government is very aware that we need to provide an enabling environment and we need to provide the level playing field. Now beyond that, what happens in the market, that's a call for the market player to take. And I don't think we can say that that is an area where government needs to step in. So I think as long as we respect the market and the rules of the market and as long as government respects where we need to lay down the rules of the game, I think we have enough space for everyone to grow. Right. Mr. Lahani, if I could just turn to you next because in a sense, a lot of what is happening in the railways is a reflection of that, how high are you aiming compared to the reality on the ground? So for example, the bullet train obviously is a great idea. And if you actually do have the whole of the country linked up with bullet trains, it would be wonderful, it would speed up things. But that's when you have a lot of people saying that here you're thinking of spending 100,000 crore rupees on the bullet train, even though most of the money's coming in from Japan, at a time when you're having Elphinstone type stampede's taking place, at a time when safety is not perfect, at a time when normal day-to-day services and railway lines are not good enough. So instead of aiming for the moon, should we be trying to just fix what we have? And I'm sure that's the sort of a question that all of you must be asking. See, I believe that both consolidation as well as growth, they have to go in parallel. To set right the existing organization with all its constraints, that is one side. But at the same time, we should not lose sight of the fact that we have to catch up. We have a lot of catching up to do. Right now, our average speeds of trains, a train which carries passengers is about 45 to 50, and a good strain is about 23. We have to look much beyond that. So while we are going to set right our system, that we are already on the job, setting out the safety thing, the passenger amenities and all those, the sloth which you talked about. But at the same time, we are also looking at high-speed trains, that they are the call of the day. We're looking at creating new corridors for freight. We're looking at creating corridors for a mid-high-speed segment, like 160 kilometers per hour. And I frankly believe that both have to go hand in hand. We just can't have, I just can't stop all that developmental work and just focus on correcting the entire system, right? The system is pretty solid. It's not that the system has gone haywire because we have 22,000 trains running every day and we're carrying 11 million tons of freight and two and a half crores of passengers every day. We're able to do that. It means the systems are strong, systems are solid. We have got great manuals and delegations, but yes, we can do much better. The quality of services still is not necessarily world-class of Indian railways, it's sort of passenger amenities. And safety, of course, is a major, major concern. Now, Railway Minister yesterday was telling me, you know, was telling me in an interview that we are not gonna save even a rupee on safety. We are gonna spend everything which we possibly can, which is good to hear. But I guess it's also partly a question of priorities, right? There is a limited sum of money available. So, sorry, safety is concerned. We realize it's priority number one, the focus number one. We can't just cut corners on safety at all. And this line we are following right now. And see, safety as well as passenger comfort and even things like punctuality. They're basically a symptom of a disease which is somewhere else. I just don't have a button by which I press that button and the safety improves. I press another button, the passenger amenities improve. No. It is some total of all the activities which we are doing, all the actions which we are doing. And we are going to change our processes en masse, looking at our processes, our processes relating to decision-making, our processes relating to contracting, and all that we ultimately reflect in better safety. Even now, we've got a couple of accidents recently and that created a different image perception, but the reality remains that the total number of accidents have actually gone down over the years. It's just image perception always does not portray the real grounds scenario, but we have to do better and we'll be doing better. All right. May I have a second turn to you, Fendi. And I think the reason I've come to you, Fendi, of course, is also because in the example of roads and transports and highways, few people will dispute the fact that the faster they roll out and the more that they're rolling out, the better it is. Now, Mr. Gutkerry and others have often had very ambitious targets, saying we're going to take it up to 30, 35 and really take it forward. I just wanted to get your sense of where the road map is and are we, again, rolling out the big highways? Is that what the priority should be, rural roads? How do you see the sector rolling out? Okay, Vikram, let me first give you some basic statistics. Three years back, we had 91,000 kilometers of national highways. In the country, total, it is 52.5 lakh kilometers, which is all roads put together. So national highways constitutes about 2.1% of it. The idea is that we should have a national highway network of about 2 lakh kilometers. That is what my minister's vision is. Today, from 91,000 kilometers, three years back, today we are at 115,000 kilometers. Last year, we added 8,000 kilometers. In terms of linear distance, it looks 8,000 kilometers, but when I do the international reckoning where it is countered as lane kilometers, then let me also share with the Sahas we constructed 20,000 lane kilometers. It's no joke, getting on to that kind of a thing because if I constructed 10 kilometer road, which is six lane, I still counted 10 kilometers. If it's four lane, I still counted 10 kilometers. If I construct two lane road, it is still counted 10. But lane kilometers is something which is the international norm through which you measure it. Now, this year, we are set to construct anywhere between 9,000 to 10,000 kilometers as compared to 8,000 kilometers which we constructed last year. Given the space, we have to take it to that situation because with 2% of national highways of the total road network, we are carrying about 40% of the traffic. But simultaneously, there is a constraint and which is where the ministry is acutely conscious of it, that the personal private transport is increasing at a CAGR of 10% plus. If it continues to grow at this rate, then probably we would need to add one lane every three years, which is a huge challenge. Therefore, comes the transport side that the focus has to be towards a shift from personal private transport to a public transport. Today, I would have about a gap of about 10,000,000 buses. And if you want to shift this car moving the private transport people, then you need good quality buses. Good quality, comfort and efficient in terms of fuel consumption and alternate fuels. Well, buses theoretically are running on the same roads but sometimes it's been said because India's lagging behind in certain areas. Like telecom would be the perfect example. India was lagging behind when it came to landlines. So you're able to leapfrog and really to take a leadership in mobile phones. Wouldn't you say it's a real opportunity for India maybe because the roads or whatever they are and the state of transportation or whatever it has been, India could potentially leapfrog by taking a far greater leap in, let's say electric vehicles or finding how India is gonna be a player 10 years from now in the autonomous self-driving sort of vehicles and that form of private transportation or hyperloop or whatever it is. Is that some of the thought process that you're doing? Let's be one of the first to go electric instead of being one of the last. As a matter of fact, the first pilot is already on. The minister in his constituency in Nagpur, there are 500 electric cars which are running as taxis for last more than about six months with electric charging stations and parking slots. That is the first pilot which is already going on. But coming on to the national highways as well and adding on to it, I think we have to appreciate one thing, that the rate at which the expectations of people are going up is far higher as compared to the rate at which we are trying to catch up. And that is the rat race. Today when I get mails accusing me, people are not saying your road has potholes or cracks or this, of course that also comes, but they're saying riding quality is fine, but the road marking is not good enough. Which means the rising expectations are getting on to that level, which we have to meet. And that is where we have to work faster. Just to finish at point of, I mean I've been wanting to ask that question, is India planning to be all electric at a certain stage, perhaps faster than people are expecting? Well, we would look forward to it. He's working on it. He's driving. I was about to throw the question to him next. Electric vehicle's policy, he's working on it. As a matter of fact, we would love to get to. Are we gonna be the first in the world to move to some of these things? Let me first add to what Yudhvi was saying and I think he was making a very important point. You know, when the Western world was urbanizing, America, Europe, you know, they had the luxury of land, gas, water being all cheaply available. So you could guzzle gas. You could create cities like Atlanta where 99.8% of the people travel by car. So the Americans made cities for cars and not for people. And they made the most polluting cities in the world. The process of urbanization has ended across America. It's ended across Europe. It's nearing completion in China. We can't afford to make the same mistakes. If we make the same mistakes, you need four planet Earth. You have only one planet Earth and therefore India has to do a more innovative and sustainable urbanization. And what Yudhvi is saying is that your cities have to be driven by public transportation. That is the key. You can't make cities for cars. You have to drive it by public transportation. That's the crux of it all. Electric vehicles is critical. Now, our view is that the internal combustion engine today in India, automobile, India is a champion in automobile and auto components. The automobile sector accounts for almost 7.2% of our manufacturing output. It accounts for a, if you look at the manufacturing, you know, it accounts for 7.2% of your GDP. The 49% of your manufacturing output comes from the automobile sector. So whatever you do, you have to cause a disruption. But whatever you do, you have to think global size and scale. That's number one. Think global size and scale. You can't do it for domestic market. You have to think exports. Number one. Number two, the tipping point will be around 2026 when the cost of the battery would have fallen. There's 50% of the cost of the battery. The cost of the battery in 2026 would have come down from 273. You could actually surprise you. Who knows? Things seem to be moving faster than anybody was expecting. From $273 to $73. And by 2030, actually the number of cars of electric vehicles would be more than internal combustion. Despite everything today, today, only 1% of the total cars sold are electric vehicles. But 2030, it'll be the touching point. 2026. So whatever India does has to be global size and scale. And we must not think of the domestic market, but India must become the center for global manufacturing for batteries, for interoperable charging systems, and for vehicles. India must use its frugal engineering skill, its ability to innovate, its ability to do entrepreneurial spirits, and skills to penetrate global markets for electric vehicles. And that presumably is not just for electric vehicles. It's for other things. It's for solar. You can think of a range of areas in the new technology. Actually, I'm going to throw that to you, because one of the things that you keep hearing is that we should prepare for the big changes that are coming. What is here at the World Economic Forum? Perfect place, I guess, to talk about the fourth industrial revolution, AI, nanotech, biotech. These are potentially the areas that the countries that are going to dominate five to 10 years from now will be the countries which are leaders in this. What are we doing with lithium? How are we managing long-term lithium supplies? What is the policy on nanotech and biotech? And how do we encourage investment in artificial intelligence, for example? And why is it that China seems to have a lead in patents and not India? Are those the sort of concerns that you think Indian bureaucracy is really sitting and thinking about at a great length? Absolutely. As a matter of fact, these are areas of great importance, which is we are working on that. The new industrial policy that we are working on has a very important element on how do we do a smooth transition to industry 4.0? AI, robotics, additive printing, IoT. All these are extremely important areas for us. We know that adoption of these technologies in a seamless manner, having the right kind of skilled people, is extremely important for us. As a matter of fact, we don't need to go the road of China, where large-scale manufacturing was done in a particular way, coastal economic zone and all that. Today is the age, the coming years, at the age of decentralized and customized manufacturing using additive printing and other technologies. And we have a strength in digital space, data. And all this is data-driven, all this IoT and things like that. We have set up an expert group on AI. How do we integrate AI policies into our industrial policy? So we have very innovative and smart people, including startups, who are working on all this space. They are doing fantastic work, actually. But then our overall R&D spend is very low. If we just talk about innovation, we are spending less than 1% of our GDP. Korea spends more than 4%. I think we need to not only spend more on R&D, we also need to get more results from the R&D spend. And these new technologies are absolutely the area of future. Recently, government is setting up four experience centers, containing all these technologies of the future of smart manufacturing, so that any entrepreneur can go and see and experience how these are working. And I think these are also great opportunities for our large MSME sector. We all know that our MSME sector suffers because of also, by and large, most areas, lack of the latest technology. I think we have to make them smart manufacturing ready, industry 4.0 ready. All these are matters of highest priority for us, and we are working very actively on it. All of this, of course, is going to require data, and that's why you've got to keep coming back to what the reality is. At the end of the day, whatever the changes are and whatever the transformation is happening, the average Indian has way lower connectivity or access to good quality bandwidth or data than most of the other countries do, and that's something which is going to end up holding us back. And let's face it, there is a huge digital divide which is still there in place today. Most people will not have access to all of this. Vikram, you're absolutely right. I think there's probably no country in the world which has more at stake in the digital economy and society than we have. And fortunate thing is that India is also the fastest digitizing nation in the world. I mean, you can look at a range of parameters and this is a country that's really hungry for digital and is in various stages of moving to digital. But having said that, I will agree with you that we need to do a lot more in terms of building the information highways or the super highways because given our deficit in conventional infrastructure, we definitely need to have real broadband which is the only way we can actually deliver a lot of the services. But the point is that today we are indeed working on building those information highways. The Bharat Net program in 2014, we were at about 314 kilometers of optic fiber which had been laid but now as we speak, it's actually reached 75,000 gram panchayats and by the end of this year, 100,000 gram panchayats. That will mean that at least a hundred million more rural Indians by the end of this year will actually have access to optic fiber. Similarly, let's look at what's happening in digital payments. We had around 1.5 million points of sale, electronic points of sale, till about November last year. But in the last 10 months, that has been almost tripled. So by the end of this year, we expect that we will actually go up to around 4.5 million points of sale. So what that will mean is that a lot of people will be... But it still will be only a small fraction of the total number of transactions. It'll still be a small part of it. But the point is that that is precisely why everyone is in a hurry. The government is in a hurry. We do need to get much more fiber out there. We need to build these networks. So you're absolutely right. We don't have the luxury of time. We need to all get on with it. You know, I have to say it's really refreshing to have five of the top bureaucrats in the country. And we're sitting here having a discussion and they all saying we need to hurry. We need to move faster. And the rest of us are saying, yeah, yeah, but let's keep an eye on the realities. So that's pleasant because normally you would think that the bureaucrats are the ones who are sitting firmly on the brakes and saying, stop moving. You know, and you are all saying, move faster. But just that slight element of reality check that I do want to come back to and I'm gonna throw it to all of you. Because sometimes people these days are saying that look, the aspirations are great. The vision is wonderful. Maybe want to get to is great. The reality of what's there on the ground right now seems to be rather rocky. So joblessness continuing to rise. Very few jobs being created. The economy may still be one of the fastest growing economies in the world, but it's slowing down and that's a cause of concern. And you can figure out what the reasons for that are. But is the reality right now something which we should be concerned about while we should keep aiming high and far be it from me to say we shouldn't aim high. And of course we should aim high. But is the reality a matter of some concern right now? You know when you undertake very major structural changes of the kind which India has done and which India was crying for, you're gonna have slight dips. But I think in the long run this will accelerate the pace. It will bring in greater integrity into the system. And in the long run it will help you formalize your economy and I don't think there's any cause at all to worry. Jobs, not even jobs, jobs don't worry you. So I'm coming to that. My view is that India must keep disrupting the system. It's important we do this because we must use technology to make quantum jumps forward. I think, I don't know, talked about digitization. I mean we are all using our mobile now to do peer-to-peer transaction. All our mobiles are linked to a biometric and to a mobile number. We'll be the first country which will probably make debit card, credit cards, ATM redundant in three to four years. I think many of these things like the EV vehicle or artificial intelligence, India must embrace technology as a very, in a very major way to make a quantum jump. And this will cause some structural disruption in the short run. Now much of the debate on jobs, Vikram, is based on a labor bureau status day which just takes into consideration 1.4% of the total job, this total formal enterprises in the country. Just 1.4%. So 98.6% of the enterprises are not taken into consideration. But we've tried to analyze some of these statistics in Nithya Iol. And one of the things that comes out very clearly is that, you know, the flow of credit to the agriculture sector has radically improved. The Mudra loans, 9.5 crores, and majority of them have gone to women. The number of self-help groups which have come up. And there's a recent McKenzie study which shows that actually the country has created more than 21 to 23 million livelihood jobs in this country. But you keep hearing about layoffs, right? Telecom sector, others, they are layoffs that are taken. You know, India is a country with a lot. You know, India is not a country like China which does large-scale manufacturing of coastal zone variety. India is a byproduct of, you know, medium, small enterprises, a lot of informal enterprises. 45% of India's GDP, 43% of India's exports comes from MSME sector. And when you carry out major structural reforms like GST, you will have some structural issues. But as Abhishek rightly said, that this is a, we are all responsive. The government is highly responsive. The government reacts. And I'm quite sure we'll put this back in order and we'll accelerate the pace of change. We'll accelerate the pace of growth. Okay. Coming on the job part of it. Yeah, and I just wanted to ask a related question. And I'm going to come into the infrastructure. One of the related questions which was sometimes here, and it was heard here as well yesterday, that even if there are not that many jobs in the organized sector and in the normal type of jobs, government jobs, bureaucracy, things like that, if those are starting to go down, doesn't matter because there's going to be a wave of jobs and employment in startups and entrepreneurial activity and the rest of that. That's a possible thesis, but unfortunately, we're not releasing many startups coming up and then dying out. So it's not that there's really a wave of successful entrepreneurship, successfully working at the present moment. It might happen in the future. Right now there's less evidence for that, which is something I just wanted to check with you. There are jobs and jobless growth and those ideas. Most of the evidence is anecdotal, that which company laid off so many people and so on and so forth. If you see less than 20% of the labor in the manufacturing sector is employed in the organized sector. More than 80% are in the unorganized sector, for which there is very little data because of the various labor laws and policies that the country has, most people prefer not to employ them on their roles. This is one of the legacy issues. If you look at, if you want to see whether people are earning enough income at the end of the month, you should actually look at the income-generating opportunities in the economy, whether it's by way of salary or wages or it's by virtue of their own work. We have micro-entrepreneurs now. We have e-commerce companies, taxi companies, sharing cabs. They are employing hundreds of thousands of people. They are more like micro-entrepreneurs. They are not counted as jobs. The logistics sector is one of the major providers of jobs and after GST is going to be a much bigger provider of jobs. Those are not counted because they know data collection method for that. You look at retail sector. There's an enormous amount of job creation in the organized retail sector as well for which we have some data, but unorganized retail, we don't have the data. MSME, now more and more people are coming under GST, so we will have data about that because they will come under the EPFO network. So I can tell you this, that we should not look just at jobs as the government as CEO has pointed out. We should see what kind of income generating opportunities are available in the country. You have got the start-ups who are actually organizing the unorganized sector among the service providers. They are organizing carpenters, electricians, beauticians and so on and so forth. And the start-ups, you see there are start-ups. Yesterday I was in a discussion, a panel discussion with Radhika from shop clues. There are 600,000 sellers who are selling their e-commerce platform. And she was saying that normally each of them would employ four and five people, but when they operate through e-commerce which actually increases their sales, they all employ two or three extra people. So our data collection and this entire perception of jobs is entirely meant around the organized sector and the wage employment. We need to get over it. How many entrepreneurs have Ola created in India? 700,000. They are not car drivers, they are car owners. They are new age entrepreneurs. And how many jobs has Uber created? 450,000 jobs in this country. They are not drivers. Does that mean you are not about to close Uber down? Just happened in London? So we are far more progressive than London. Okay. I just wanted to ask you, in addition to anecdotal evidence, there is data, there is data. Telecom companies are under stress. There is data that people are losing jobs. If what both Ramitri and Amitabh were saying is correct that a lot of people are actually becoming entrepreneurs using digital and other means, is there any data that you are picking up to substantiate that? And by the way, while I am asking that, are these reports about severe joblessness and rising job cuts in the telecom sector correct? Are you hearing it? Actually, in the telecom sector, while we have heard companies speak about financial stress, Vikram, I don't think anyone is saying that there is huge joblessness in the telecom sector. I don't think anybody is saying that. Some reports are saying that there is consolidation happening and that people are trying to merge or see how they can strengthen themselves. But I don't think there are really large scale or any significant job losses. But I think the point that you were saying whether we have any data, I think one of the problems that we have in this country is really that there is no very good tracker of fresh employment being created. Because I think the bulk of it is really getting created far away in the rural areas far from what the studios focus on. So we really don't know what is happening in those areas. What is happening is structurally disruption is happening. Some of the old industries are dying out, old sectors are dying out but a lot of new sectors are coming up as he was saying there is huge vibrancy in the startup sector. So I wouldn't really go with this diagnosis yet. Well I mean it's come to the two of you because some sort of an indication as to the level of economic activity that's taking place. Is it picking up? Is it not picking up? Is there prolonged slowdown or not? Would be from some of the infrastructural benchmarks like how many people are using rails? Is freight moving? What is your sense of the process of the railways? Is it still going to remain or do you see that starting to go down? It is one of the largest employees in the world of course. See we are an organization which is in monopoly. We are in the sellers market. People run after us to get a train ticket confirmed or to book a for transporting goods. So as far as we are concerned we are growing every year we are growing. Though not at the pace at which we like it to be. That is because of infrastructural constraints. In the first 94 years since railways came to came to India in 1853. I think we built around 50,000 route kilometers. And in the next 70 years we built around 15,000. That time we could a pace of construction was massive. We started 1853, 1870 the four golden quarter little was connected. In 15 years they climbed all the hills. All the hills were created in 15-20 years. Can we think of such a pace now? No. But we have to come to a stage where our pace is that solid. If we are able to do that we are trying to do it like I told you about the dedicated freight corridors and the 160 kilometers per hour all the corridors we are going to create the first of the high speed then we will have more of high speeds. We are able to do it at the same pace then we will be able to take advantage also very fast. And our spend on capital expenditure is really going up. In 2014-15 we did around 55,000 crores and in 2016-17 we have done 110,000 crores more than double this year 130,000 crores. We are going to spend that kind of money in building infrastructure. That will rev up a lot of things. When it comes to building the infrastructure one thing is that the government can do it and I am sure you are. But there were a lot of private companies that were getting into infrastructure and one of the reasons why the economy is facing infrastructure companies that were building for road contracts, were trying to build out roads doing other stuff. They are under severe financial stress they have indebtedness, banks are complaining about NPAs. How do you unlock that so that private investment can really start? Okay, Vikram, allow me to make one comment on the job part of it before I answer your question. I think on the job side we are at crossroads situation. In the general public mind good job is a white collar job firm, secure with salary every month without requiring to put in corresponding effort. All through that I talk to the industry they say I have a number of jobs but I need committed workers. So I think that mindset also has to change correspondingly in order to exploit the job opportunities which exist across organized and unorganized sector. So you mean a good government job is not the thing that people should aim for anymore. No, there is a limit. And it's interesting to ask that question here on this panel to you people. There is a limit. You can't be having a government job for everybody. So it's like this that if I go to my village somebody says chahi peon lagwado if I tell him why don't you set up your business? He doesn't want to do it because a lot of effort and initiative and risk is involved. I think that kind of enterprise has to come as a part of that awareness. Now coming to the stress test and NPS we had close to 73 stalled projects out of which it has been possible to resolve close to about 66 by now we have 6 or 7 which we are resolving. We went into the government where more than 50% of the work had been done. We went in for one time fund infusion. Re-adjustments deferments in terms of the toll premiums. Changing over the schemes because BOT toll for example for roads was perceived as a high risk kind of a thing. We have come out now the government has come out with hybrid and the traffic risk is not to his account. So all these responses are quite positive and we look at it there are very few projects which we would say stalled or stuck up. In terms of NPS I would also say I think that is where the private sector also has to do some kind of a soul searching. How does one explain that physical progress of a project is only 30% but the debt drawn from the bank is 90% I think the tendency to bring in equity also through the debt has to take a backseat. That discipline has to come as a part of the project execution. And now we are taking more and more on EPC mode that is I pay for the project the moment I complete the EPC then I monetize it which means all land acquisition, statutory clearances construction related risks are taken out. We are moving on to that direction. The first question is how much of nine road assets in the TOT model is going on steam in October? He is going to sell roads. That is an interesting way to look at it. I am about to turn to the audience but before that one final question that I want to get all of you to really weigh in on. This is not something which is new right now. It has perhaps been the case in the past also. At the highest levels of the government and bureaucracy there is a lot of issues. I am sure all of you are taking steps towards it. The real problem when it comes to the bureaucracy is not at your level. Sometimes it is at your level as well. But by and large it is way further down when you are going and trying to get the average person who the citizen is coming into contact with, your municipal officers. People at the lower levels. That is where the slot is. And those people don't present a benign face of the state. A state which is saying let's all move forward, let's develop. You are having a predatory face of the state which is out for extraction and quite often that is where the corruption is emerging from. I want to know if you are really going to proceed fast. At your levels whatever you are doing is great. How do you get that to filter all the way down to the grassroots? I would like to get all of your take on that. So Vikram you can't govern 21st century India with 19th century institutions. You need a massive restructuring of your institute. My view is that the next wave of big jobs is going to come from your social sector. Education, health and India needs to restructuring. Part of what is happening right now with GST, with demonetization, you are still using the old 19th century methods which is why so many people are complaining. When it comes to GST it's a very, very game changing initiative and as somebody once told me when I was trying to make a perfect document that perfection is the enemy of good. Start it. You will learn midway. It is very early and one is responding to the learnings. That kind of change management has to be given an opportunity. And that's fair enough. That's what the government also said. I think the way you phrased it, don't make the perfect enemy of the good is the way most people are approaching GST right now. I'm talking about it at a more generic level. That is enough being done to structurally remove the power of discretion in the hands of petty bureaucrats and petty administration. That's what the problem is. I think the size and scale of everything is being digitized. Look at what has been done on ease of doing business. Everything. You're making states compete. You're ranking them. You're naming and shaming them. You're putting their ranking in not nearly on ease of doing business on health, on education, on water management. You're ranking district hospitals. You're making good governance. If you're not able to perform you'll be voted out. That's the philosophy which we are saying. We're not saying that the government must become good politics in India. The key is about using digitization as a process. Everything should be totally online. No human intervention at all. No human intervention at all. Calling for the abolishing of bureaucracy completely. Let me just say one thing. Wherever it has been in the past, there are a lot of processes which are technology driven. That element has got eliminated. Like today if I need my copy of my land records, it is available online. I can go and print it. I don't have to go and pay 200 rupees. You still have to go to the Patwari and say will you mutate my land and he will ask you for money. So what is the cost of the code? This is getting eliminated. Yes, it is considered that we are far from where we need to reach. There is no doubt about it. I am looking at it that okay access to national highways and we are changing our guidelines. I said look wherever we constructed the service road let the access be and petty bureaucracy by the use of online methods and technology. That's real for the Fourth Industrial Revolution taking place, if you can achieve that. By the way, while we've been speaking, the biggest governance reform, which is direct benefit transfer, I mean, what is the objective? The whole objective is that disintermediate. If a citizen is entitled to something, make sure that that entitlement reaches him without these layers of bureaucracy. Similarly, digital identity. Again, the idea is disintermediate. The patwari that you spoke about, why do I need this patwari to certify that I am Aruna? So the point is that it started happening. So I'm also a firm believer in... Maybe replace all bureaucracy with artificial intelligence. That's another radical thought going forward. Incidentally, let me tell you, all the government benefits are getting transferred straight into the accounts of beneficiaries without going through any human interface. Look at public auctions of natural assets, all done flawlessly without human intervention, reverse auction bid. Okay, I'm looking forward to the session of the World Economic Forum that we will do right here about 30 years from now where everyone around me is a robot, but, you know, till that happens, till that happens. See, what you have said, I think needs a more complex answer. Situation is also complex. In the ease of doing business work that we are doing in the IPP, our target with the states, as well as departments and regulators is to have completely technology-driven governance. As little physical interface as possible, people apply only online, offline applications are completely gone. There is a time limit within which the authority has to take a decision. If they don't take a decision, then it is supposed to be a deemed approval. I'll just give you an example of municipal corporation of Delhi, all there are so many other examples. Here, there were 42 procedures for applying for a construction permit. There were multiple agencies, almost 10 agencies. So everybody had to go to each of the agencies, get a NOC, and then come here, and all that and all the attendant problems you can imagine. Now, for last two years, there is only online system, no offline system, in which all these 10 agencies are integrated now. So you have to apply only once, and if you don't hear anything from there within 30 days, then you get a digitally signed construction permit, automatically generated to you. Now, this is just one example, but our challenges are far more. We have been able to do it in many places, but there is so much more to be done. I'll give you an example of a power electricity connection reform. All these we are doing in connection to the World Bank report, and of course the ranking of states or ease of doing business is generating so much more work. We, for example, Tata Power in Delhi, and they have a system now, you can apply only online for 100 KVA plus connection. And they have given about a dozen connections in 15, 16 days. But once the World Bank team called the Helpline Center, they said, can any you go to the customer care center, you have to apply offline. So we have a challenge of the staff at the cutting edge. So what we are trying to do now is to orient them, train them also. They know offline application possibility at all, but that person doesn't know. So all the mindset change, all the reforms that are going on from the higher bureaucracy to percolate to the lower level is definitely a challenge and something that we are addressing to much more orientation and training with them. All right, I'm not sure how you're gonna get any of this into the real ways, but I guess it's possible. And I'm just thinking of what this does to joblessness. I mean, if you're, the more you're making it technologically sophisticated and bypassing that, and that's that many other jobs, perhaps people can be used to do something more, more useful. We have a workforce of around 1.3 million. Yeah. It's a damn big number. And we have a problem of the people who interact with us at the cutting edge level, they really complain, it's not a very pleasant experience. But it's all about the complexity of the tons which we have created. I'm heading real way right now. Just before that, I was near India and they're also my realization was we have made things actually impossible to happen. They don't happen. Down there is frustrated. He's unable to contribute. And that is a very big frustration. You are unable to contribute, you are creating a salary and unable to contribute. There's a very big frustration and that reflects in your service levels. We have to make the tons simple. How decisions are taken and how contracts are entered into. These are the only two parameters, the only two factors. And that is like we have to empower people and that is what we are working on right now. And extremely, extremely aggressively that each of my 13 lakh men is in a high state of motivation. He's able to contribute. He should not feel he's helpless. We have created a scenario where everybody feels helpless. Everybody feels he's got only a negative power. Everybody can stop work from happening but not everybody can make it happen. You have to be empowered to do the positive things. Empower to do the positive. Without also having the fear of ramifications that there's a CAG. Make it very simple. There's something coming up. Make it very simple. Okay. Mr. Manaji, let me just get you and then anybody else in the audience who has a comment to make. I mean, does industry feeling as optimistic about the way things are going as them or would you like the bureaucracy to do something differently? The bureaucracy has to do many more things and much more differently than what's been happening and a lot is happening which is differently. Let me just touch upon a couple of points. And I completely believe that you talked about the jobs part of it. And I think, say for instance, railways, we were talking about jobs in railways. The type of indirect jobs that railways are still going to create in railways services are a plenty. So I'm really not quite concerned about this jobs part that we keep talking about because we really need to change the narrative. It's not jobs. It's the work. It's the livelihood that we are talking about. And a lot more new stuff has actually come out and that's been alluded to and I don't want to repeat. Second, I want to talk about a partnership. And you can see a change earlier in the panels which we have attended, Vikram. This used to be like we talk about the government industry. This is the first time you're seeing the government talking about the private sector not being able to cope up. And there's a point there. There's a point there. Private sector has been wanting disruptions. We wanted GST to come in. We wanted many disruptions to actually come in. But now that it has hit you, you can't just say that things are not hunky-dory. You have to go through the pain. Private sector had gone through a pain in 1991. All the private sector didn't get united to say that we don't want it or we want it. Many didn't want it. I think that's the call that we need to take as what's right when we are visioning a country which is so complex. I think that's interesting. We are looking at it. Gentleman there in the last row. Yeah, I'm Dieter Ritz from Berlin, political scientist. I have only one question. There is the digitization and you want to do all the applications online. I'm just scared. What would that mean for people who are unable to do that, who are not privileged enough to have those access by virtue of money, by virtue of education, or by virtue of their local existence? Is that not further marginalization? I think that's a really good question. I'm going to try and see if you can quickly answer that. If everything is online, what happens if we don't have an internet connection? Actually, if you see those who are applying for power connections and others, and we actually underestimate the power of our people to go digital or to learn the processes, you look at the number of Facebook accounts in India. It's staggering. It is so many people in rural areas are using Facebook also. And the phones, everybody has at least one phone and if not more, I think the power of our people to learn is underestimated. We have 250,000 common service centers in the country that help people access government services. So I think we should not worry too much. There may be some transition, but I think people can adapt very easily. All right, I'm almost out of time. Actually, let me just first get the gentleman here and then the lady there and then we'll be done. Thank you. My name is Shahid Jameel. I'm the CEO of the Wellcome Trust, DBT India Alliance. You know, it's not artificial intelligence that I'm worried about. It's natural stupidity. So it's really the misalignment of new age technology versus old age thinking. Mr. Kant made a statement where he said that education, health are going to be important in the future. So what are we doing about spending on education and health and training in these sectors? In one of the sessions yesterday, I heard that the budget of two universities in China is more than the budget of the entire MHRD. Right, I'll just try and fire that. Let me just get one comment from you as well, the lady there, and then I'll try and fire this one. Just speak loudly, we can hear you. Mine is on similar lines. It's again a reality check. Last week, I lost a young colleague in the Elphinstone tragedy. We talked about decision making, digitization and all of that. In fact, the way you talked about it, completely lawed all the efforts that you're undertaking to do the big bank changes. But how are you kind of looking at the bureaucracy and retraining, rescaling and getting them to make faster decisions? Because the entire bridge expansion apparently took two years for the bureaucrat to take and it had just unfortunately come only last week. So that's another point that I would like to touch on. All right, I'm afraid we are flat out of time. Maybe just time for one line closing remark. I'm afraid we're out of time. We'll have to take it later. I've just got a signal they have to go somewhere. Just one quick final line put from each of you on the bureaucracy. How do you give the bureaucracy a sense that they can take those decisions that are being asked for without fear that government's gonna change. Somebody else is gonna come. You're gonna be filing CBI inquiries against you. It's been one of the reasons for sloth in the past. And then quick last line from everyone. I think support good, sensible, right decision making. Support all people with integrity and back them to the health. You want India to grow rapidly. You'll have to work on good faith. Back people with integrity. Okay, last line, priority. Your priority going forward. I'll put it to this that when we are restructuring most of the processes and particularly in our case procurement processes, do away with the discretions as much as possible, okay. If you can do away with the discretions and define those upfront, then one is not reluctant to take the seasons saying, you know, I have this apprehension of that apprehension. Remove discretion. I'll just make two points. One is regarding the Alpinstown thing. Yes, it's indeed very, very saddening what happened. The fact remains that the load on the stations, we have not, like New Delhi station was not built to handle 500,000 men, which is handling right now. Our infrastructure should have improved commensurately. But that has not happened. And that is a ground reality. It's not happened because of- But then shouldn't that be the top priority right now I think is a point that's being made as opposed to- It has not happened because of our processes which we have to look at. The second thing which I like to say is I recently wrote a piece for, got painted in the Times of India where I said, those who I commit no mistakes. If I work, I'll make mistakes. If I get fired for those mistakes, then that is not really fair. Because if I take 100 decisions, 10 will be definitely wrong, 90 will be good. So we'll have to change the system so that people are able to work fearlessly, take decisions and they should not be waiting for the music which takes place 10 years after you retire. Yeah, that's the point I was trying to make and I'm not sure there's a solution to that. Because it's not that bureaucrats have not been punished for what may have been a bona fide decision that they took at a particular period of time. I think the important thing is he was saying is to empower every element in the bureaucracy and demand accountability commensurate with that empowerment. What we often find is that there's a big mismatch between the two. And I think that's one of the fundamental reforms that we need to bring in. Okay, last line from you. It's my experience and belief that if a bureaucrat takes a decision in a transparent manner, he or she documents it properly, the reasons for the decision. And he has no mala fidee, he doesn't benefit from any of those. There's absolutely no need to worry about any agency or anybody. And this is how I personally have worked like that and that's how it is. But I think bureaucrats need to be made accountable. It's very easy to hide behind CIG and CBI and do nothing. They should be forced to take decisions and they should do it in a transparent manner, properly documenting everything. And I don't think there should be any problem. All right, well thank you so much for joining us. As I said, it's refreshing to hear the top bureaucrats of the country really pushing for faster accelerated change and saying that there may be short-term issues and there'll be problems, but eventually it will get sorted out. Also a big focus there on how you could take digital and how you can use, take advantage of the new technologies out there. Thank you all so much for being with us. Thank you.