 Well, good afternoon, everyone. Let me take the opportunity to welcome all of you to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I'm Ashleigh Tellis. I'm a senior associate at the Endowment working in the South Asia program, mostly in the arena of national security. Introducing our guests is one of the duties that I've had the good fortune to perform in many capacities over the years. But there are very few guests who have come to the Endowment whom I am genuinely joyful about introducing. And that individual today is Minister Suresh Prabhu, who as you all know is currently India's Minister of Railways. I've had the pleasure of knowing Suresh now for close to 20 years. And while he was in the Vajpayee government as Minister of Industries and Minister of Power when I was in Delhi, and subsequently all through the civil nuclear negotiations, I had the great privilege of seeing Suresh not only in action, but also as India's ambassador coming here to Washington on many occasions in terms of our effort to canvas for the conclusion of the civil nuclear agreement. You have the ambassador's bio in front of you. He's had a long and distinguished career in public service. This is his fourth election as a member of parliament from Rajapur in Maharashtra. And what the bio doesn't tell you is that besides his government service, he still found the time to pursue two different PhD programs, one in climate change in Germany and the other in public finance in India. So between his government service and his constituency service and all the other efforts that he has been part of, he's still found time to stay deeply engaged in academia and with communities like us. There are three things about Suresh that are worth knowing. Unlike many others who have graced senior governmental positions, first, he has a fetish about implementation. You could see that most clearly when he was in the power ministry. All those of you who know India's power prevails know what a challenge it has been for successive governments over the years to create a program of institutional reform. And Suresh really worked miracles while in that position. Second, as he's one of these individuals who has never let process politics or ideology get in the way of common sense. And so if there were solutions that offered themselves for implementation, he's in very bold about implementing them. And finally, I have to tell you he's a man in a hurry, where in the Batchawai government in particular now in the railways, he managed to do things that might have taken others much longer to achieve. And so we are welcoming today to Carnegie not just a Indian cabinet official, though of course that is what he is, but someone who has maintained a very strong commitment to helping India implement its development agenda over the years, irrespective of the ministries that he served in, while still maintaining remarkable constituency relations and staying engaged with individuals like you and me, wherever we are, because of his very strong sense of academic pursuit. So it's a very special pleasure for me to welcome Suresh here to the Carnegie Endowment. I hope this will be the first of many visits. I've asked him to speak today on the government's plans with respect to the transportation infrastructure, because as all of you know, that is not only one of India's great deficits, but also one of the most important investments that are critical for both employment generation and long-term sustained growth. So without further ado, let me welcome Minister Suresh Pramod to the podium. Thank you. So Ashley, thank you very much. I have been coming to Carnegie and speaking here on many occasions in the past, but it is the first time I have been able to do this as the Minister of Railways. So thank you for this opportunity meeting such a distinguished group of people and sharing ideas about what we are trying to do to develop India's transportation sector. That's what you want me to speak on that. As you know, India is, for now, the fastest growing economy among the major economies of the world. Already a two trillion dollar economy, and I'm sure if you grow by just seven, eight percent, which we are currently growing at, still will be the arithmetic itself proves that will be about 20 trillion dollar economy within the next two and a half decades. Therefore, to prepare ourselves for doing that, we have to create a huge infrastructure in India. And whatever infrastructure we create, the bulk of it has to be done in the transportation sector. How do you, when you plan for transportation, and that's what actually I was family here for, we have been discussing in the World Bank, about how to make transportation a sustainable sector. Because recently, we could reach a very interesting agreement in Paris in which I now decided to move on climate change goals. And that's something very welcome that world community could come together on such an important issue. And the role played by President Obama, our own Prime Minister, many other world leaders only could make it possible. But when we talk about, on one hand, economic growth, which is so critical for India, critical for the world. In fact, all over the world, people are thinking about how to leave the global economy. The G20 primary focus is could we make the world economic growth at least by 2% more than what normally it's going to grow. And therefore, the whole effort of the world is how to make economic growth possible. On the other side, these new climate goals, they also become so important. Thirdly, there is also an element all over the world is how do you make sure that when the development happens, economic growth actually takes place. How do you ensure that this growth is equitable? How do you make sure that people all over the country also benefit from that? All sections of society benefit from that? And that's another social goal. So we have a very challenging situation in the world that we want economic growth. We want environmental goals to be achieved at the same time social disparity to be removed. Seems to be an impossible task because it seems to be at odds with other. In my opinion, and I may be saying it little boldly, that transportation probably can play a key role in linking all the three together. So let me say start with the last one. If you have a transportation system in place properly, then it is health movement of people from one end to another very comfortably. That means even if a person desires to travel where there is an opportunity, he has a means to do that. So the social disparity part of not having access to participate in a growth center where the real growth is taking place, it denied to him if there is absence of infrastructure of transportation. So transportation in a way will help us to address the challenge of inequality. Also the inequality happens among the societies, different parts of different segments of society, but also happens in regional disparity. It happens in all of the world. Even China has one some parts which are far more developed, the coastal areas, the others are not as well developed. And therefore in India also the same thing, the eastern part of India is not as well developed as the western part of the country. So Gujarat, Maharashtra, some other coastal areas like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka are far more developed than eastern part of Bihar, Bihar, Orissa and Chattisgarh and West Bengal. West Bengal of course is a coastal state also. But this important social and regional disparities could be removed with transportation playing a very key role into that. Now the second part of environmental goals to be achieved, as you know the global greenhouse gas emission, one of the principal sector responsible for this is obviously the energy because that is something how you generate electricity, how do you use the energy source for mobility and everything decides how we are going to, that emits the greenhouse gas is the most. But other significant sector which is responsible for greenhouse gas emission is transportation. And therefore if you do not have a proper sustainable transportation in place, what we achieved in Paris, but going there of course transportation made it possible that everybody to go to Paris to begin with. Otherwise if there were no transportation nobody could have gone to Paris so the deal wouldn't have been made probably. But the transportation made it possible but transportation should not be caused to defeat the goals of Paris. And therefore we must make sure that the transportation that we devise in future must also be very environment friendly and will not grid greenhouse gases. And that's another goal that we must keep in mind. And obviously the third one, the first one which I talked about there's economic growth. I don't think India could achieve a higher rate of growth unless we put in place a strong infrastructure but also more importantly the strong transportation infrastructure. Because you know we want to make economic activity possible that means we need to build supply chains. If you want to have supply chains it must be supported by a good logistic support and all of that is not possible without transportation. So we may be importing raw material from one part of the world but to take that raw material from port to the factories we need transportation. And once you convert that raw material into a finished product taking it back to the port if it is going to be exported or to be taken to the market where it is going to be consumed we also need infrastructure for transportation. So transportation will be very key part of economic growth but also the transportation also key part in making movement of people possible to make the economic growth as something far more efficient. China's example of millions of people hundreds of millions of people who migrated from farm to factories was possible because of transportation infrastructure and if they are not migrated as many in the numbers probably the China's growth story couldn't have happened the way it happened because China created a huge manufacturing base became factory of the world but the factory of the world had to be run by some factory workers and the workers had to be bought from different places and therefore that was really made possible. So India now we want to make infrastructure growth as a priority infrastructure means many things energy infrastructure we need infrastructure for telecommunication but all of that is being done but we also need of course we need social infrastructure in education healthcare the soft part of it but all of that while it's being done the transportation will be the key element of development of our backbone for making economic growth even at a faster rate. Luckily we have almost 8,000 kilometers of coastline and there we are really akin to the US we have the east coast as well as the west coast both of us from the west coast but we have the east coast wherein there is a huge potential yet to be tapped and I would that's what I was saying some of the eastern part of India is not as well developed the western part is far more developed but still there's a tremendous scope for development so ports are something which will be key part key element of development of transportation infrastructure though they will be bringing in cargo from outside or will be able to export from there but that will provide a very important link for infrastructure but if you are the ports and they are not connected to the hinterland how do you make the port possible? So Prime Minister is talking about port development but more so his new idea is not just port development but port late development so not just ports will get developed but because of development of port that should lead to even a spin off benefit of making development possible even at a faster rate. So we have now a major program for development of ports in India our constitution means that we have a lot of powers which are being reserved for the states so firing the major ports the minor ports are owned by the there is their the responsibility of the states and we have 29 states of the 13 are actually the coastal states so the states have to develop the ports but to bring about an overall development now we are decided to work on a very ambitious program which is called Sagarmala means the garland of the ocean guard garland of ocean something like that which will bring about a development of ports and link the hinterland to the port by way of multimodal transport system so that's one of the project which we are working on and that's something which is happening. Other one is of course the major program for road development which is very significant we are now accelerated the road development in a big way and I think this year will touch the highest ever road construction anytime in India's history so we'll be doing that the third element of that of course we need airports so air connectivity and that we are actually developing a lot of airports quite a significant progress has been made in the last few years the number of passengers who travel by plane now are far more there than anytime in the past so many people were taking the first flight in life then there's now there are low cost airlines which is made it possible so that's one area the other element of transportation infrastructure is something which is my responsibility currently in the government and that's railways and the railways in a way will provide a very big the backbone of economic growth will be transportation but a backbone of transportation itself will be the railways because railways combines all the three elements that talk to you about first railways will accelerate economic growth railways is the best environment friendly transportation it has very low carbon footprint it has emissions which are far lower than road transportation and also because of the huge rail network all over India we have got 65,000 km network so that also brings in some sort of removes a lot of regional disparity if i yesterday some part of India which was still not connected to the railways the northeastern part of India now we have made a commitment that in the next four years time all the state capitals of northeast we are eight northeastern states we called them our sisters so i was always telling them that the sisters are not able to meet brother that all because of no connectivity so how can i call a sister the brother doesn't see sister sister doesn't meet brother so what is the brother and sister relationship so now we have decided to connect them and we have already yesterday we commissioned one in other tala which is one of the other states so we are only done for three now we'll do for the remaining four five in the next few years time so railways is one transportation sector which will combine the economic priorities it will bring in the social dimension and will also be able to comply with the environmental goals that we have set for ourselves as well as the global community wants to do it in any case and let me if time permit talk take care about the city transportation because that again is a very small component but important one in railways we are decided to work on a major program we lost out lot of our traffic to the roads and that's for a simple reason because if we invest more into the roads and do not invest anything into the railways obviously they will keep getting it so your competitor is doing very well because he is always renovating modernizing investing and i'm sitting quiet watching him how is he doing it and i keep blaming him all the time that you know see this you are responsible for my not growing so why don't you grow i'm not stopped you so now we are decided to change our plan i presented my first budget and this our present government's first full budget to the parliament last year in which i said we'll invest about hundred forty two billion dollars into the railways in the next five years time and this is extraordinary because we always used to invest something which was given to us by the finance minister so the railway minister normally had a job to find out why i'm not able to do it so first of course he'll blame the neighbor the road other he will always blame the finance minister he's not giving money otherwise you know i could have done so much so the finance minister as if he has so much of money is stored in the treasure he's not able to take out so he's also borrowing from the market so how do you expect him to give money and there are so many competing demands on the same money so the mother having 10 children and not enough food every child has to be given little less than what he wants so obviously the railways they're not getting what they wanted so i said we'll not just keep blaming the finance minister as a strategy of railways so what is your strategy of railways i will blame the finance minister so that's my strategy so i said we'll change the strategy and we'll work on finding out a solution to the problem so this hundred forty two billion dollars plan we said we'll raise the money and then everybody obviously after my budget was presented everybody applauded the budget but said you know this is a good budget but cannot be implemented because where is the money so i said okay wait honey we'll give you the money so within about eight days of doing that we signed a deal with the largest insurance company in the country life insurance corporation of india to raise 25 billion dollars at a rate which is incredibly low and we had to repay that amount in 30 years period so first people could not accept it they said we are talking about two billion dollars because then zeros could change you know so i said no actually we are talking about 20 billion so people could not believe first i may be have we are talking about 20 probably 20 million dollars so i said no 20 billion dollars so nobody could believe that but anyway we got 25 billion dollars why we got that money and now we have more or less the world bank also i'm going to meet after this to the bank officials and we are trying to take that issue forward so point was railways the suffering we lost out the traffic is because we invested more into roads and nothing in railways so and railways needed modernization railways needed revamping railways needed safety measures to be undertaken and many others so we decided to invest into that and now we are quite first year we already invested far more than any time in the past of course next year will be better because the railway officials so we are the largest bureaucracy in the country and the largest commercial organization largest employer one of the largest employer in the world despite that they were never used to this because all the time the money was available on one project so next year minister changes so he'll say this project is on is already declared if i give more money to it now i'm not going to get credit for it so let me declare another project so he'll declare another project and the ministers were changing very rapidly so the projects were also changing faster than that and therefore no project was ever completed but the money was allocated partly and the projects were still going on so project on paper were there but you cannot use the tracks because tracks were not laid so projects were there but tracks were not there so we actually decided to invest we changed the track in a way and decided to put money where there was necessary and now this year we are spent but next year we'll be able to spend far more because next year's spending is already assured this year there's like a financial closure so those projects which are doing and what are the projects we are doing we are taking those projects which were their most congested lines like where there are two lines and they are clogged we're trying to put a third one where the third one we are already clogged we're trying to put the fourth one so by doing this this will be the lowest hanging fruit we'll be able to bring in more revenues with the least cost for example you are going to put a completely greenfield project the new doubling or a tripling project as we commonly called will cost you about 60 percent of that again we don't have to invest in the land because land is already available next to the track so we don't need environment clearance because already the railway is running so whatever is pollution has happened or not happened is already there so we don't have to go and now again reinvent the wheels so therefore this is something which we are trying to implement the project in a manner that will give us a quick benefit low cost money is already tied up we are also this is one segment the other one is we are trying to do is on modernizing the infrastructure by bringing new technology so we are tied up with about 13 14 countries japan is one korea is one another one and many others including europeans and i'm sure i'm meeting the transport secretary tomorrow so we'll also like us to be involved into this entire process we already have some understanding with us but we could create an umbrella agreement with them as well the idea is that we must upgrade our own infrastructure with the technology which is available today now we start now again start developing technology today setup center which will take years so why not actually get the technology best of the technology then use that technology indigenize it and then start working on it so therefore we are already working with these countries in japan we made a very landmark agreement we already of course going in for a high speed railway and that is between mumbai and amtabad the two major commercial centers of india and that will about 15 16 billion dollars project in which most of it 85 percent of it will be made in india so that makes our prime minister other program of making india a reality so we are working on that with japan is also going to help us to revamp our present infrastructure going beyond the high speed railways they're also going to help us to actually bring the safety standards enhance the safety standards of india like japan has the best safety standards in the world as far the railways are concerned so and and also we are tying up with japan to share the research and development institution of japan will type it railways into research and development institution same is with korea and others we are trying to do so the second is as i said modernizing the third element was to bring in better customer service so we have already several changes which we are making to better food quality better design of the coaches in between of course we have 60 70 000 coaches so by the time we do all will take time but we already got one rake with a completely modern design already revamped coaches already there we already done that then reservation which is to be a problem because the customer's journey starts with reservation but you're not able to reserve the ticket so there's nothing else happens subsequently so we actually revamped it by getting a new website that website is already working very well also the quality of lean on quality many many things in customer service not rather going into all of that but one of the problem people face is that lodging of complaint so as was saying anywhere in the world the customers are complaint on something so first they want to make a complaint you go to a restaurant that the food quality is not good but once you realize that a person is not listening to me then he forgets about why he was complaining his complaint is that you are not listening to me so he's fighting about it but after sometime we'll say okay i'm fighting with me fine tell me what i was not listening to what is a complaint you say i don't remember that now i want to fight because you need so the complaint not able to file a complaint becomes a major complaint so we decided to revamp the system and we are going to now have new portal wherein the complaints can be done but something extraordinary has happened in the railways and we want to initialize it is that people and let me give you the numbers we are about 27 million people travel by railway every day so you can imagine the numbers so this is something 10 percent of us almost travel by railway every day so we have and then as you know the any customer you can say the customer is king customer is right but customer you may be right and king but he has complaints to make because he's always as a customer he feel that's my inner and right to make a complaint so you can imagine how many complaints you must be received so we started a new process of putting it on a twitter so people can lodge a complaint on a twitter first nobody could believe it and we started giving instant response so in there are several cases in the past somebody has said my child didn't get milk because the train word delayed because of fog next station we made sure that an officer went with the milk and gave it to one girl was not properly uh there was she was fearing that some the next door passenger is misbehaving so we got him arrested on the following station somebody the ticket checker was asking for the money we got him arrested on the next day so so many hundreds of complaints like this on the real-time basis we are able to solve so people are saying and that's why one of the us channel we're trying to do a story on that saying that even multinational corporations are not able to handle complaints like this how the railways are able to handle so this is something which the new paradigm which are brought in which has really changed the perception of people so as I said the quality of food quality of linen quality of travel was a great cause of complaint but then the other complaint became bigger complaint so when we started addressing this complaint people are real happy even with the existing food so this is something which is interesting so what we really need to do is have a completely responsive system which we are trying to put in place so the railways we are working on modernization we are also working on modernization of the stations we have got 8500 stations so up which 400 stations where there are maximum footfalls and therefore maximum eyeballs and therefore a lot of commercial value those stations we are trying to develop using the land and air rights of that and going vertical so these stations will become commercially attractive properties and globally the railways derive 30% of the income almost from non-railway operations so for the India it is not even 1% so over a period of time railways have to be profitable which in turn will be able to invest more of their surpluses into the railways modernization railways must earn money from non-railway operation so to do that we need advertising we need monetizing several of our assets probably I'll just give one example of that but also due this railway station development which can bring in a lot of revenues to the railways which will make it profitable sure working on that we also recently awarded contacts worth about 7 billion dollars to two companies one of them is a US company which is he other is a French company Ulstam so this is to modernize and I think probably these two companies for them is also the biggest contact in particularly in the global downturn and others so we are working with the US also time to help the US economy in the process of course so by doing that we are of course all this we made in India so that makes it possible but the US company will also be able to take the profits of that in the balance sheet so the Wall Street also should be happy that in the next few quarters the bottom line will improve so we are actually working on many of these initiatives and I'm sure this will make India's infrastructure a far better one than this I'm just giving example of this monetization I told you about a website wherein people can come and book tickets so it's an e-commerce website so in India e-commerce is an evolving business so one of the startup e-commerce company snapd is another the valuation is 15 billion dollars with far lesser hits now just imagine what could be the valuation of this Indian railway tourism development IRCTC which is called what could be the valuation of this so that we are not even taken on books so if you start monetizing the assets of this type of corporates and companies which we have will be able to also earn money so this is also part of a study so really we are actually trying to significantly change it's a long way to go I mean what I said you and just not tomorrow you go to again travel by train then I will get another tweet from you by complain about you so I don't want to tell you just now everything is really good but things are changing changing fast changing for better but a long way to go so I was telling yesterday the world bank that the destination has not been reached but a journey has begun so long way to go but a journey has begun and you can never reach a destination unless you begin the journey but and because we're going to say that you know destination is going to take long time so you don't begin a journey we're not going to get anything so we'll get another five years time minimum we should be able to make a significant progress in the next five years I think we should be able to double the investment that we are making today just to put in perspective when I give you numbers probably it looked like a very large number China has invested into the railways what we are going to invest in next five years every year for the last several years and what is the outcome is what China's railway system has become today so if you want to be like China the outcome has to be compared then you must follow the same process that a Chinese did and one of the process was and the one of the major process was to make investments into the railways and therefore this is what we are doing in my opinion the railways itself will contribute to a growth of two to three percent to the GDP over the next few years time railways will be able to pull the demand for solar sectors when we start making such investments with railways the demand for steel demand for cement demand for so many other commodities will rise it will create a lot of rural employment because while you construct the lines you construct the you make the construction a lot of new jobs will be created the rural incomes will rise so therefore the demand for other products will also rise so the spin off benefit of making investment to railways will go far beyond the railways system itself we also done quite a few management changes the delegation of power is something which is significant railways is the largest bureaucracy largest employer but everything was centralized in Delhi so actually last time we came to my office we had lunch so they said when I'm going to work I said no work to do because everything is delegated so all this decision making power commercial power that we are doing is already delegated to the general managers of railways so this is not only delegated to the board but to the general managers of railways and first time we are saying that no decision commercial decision tendering is done at the ministers level it is done at the general managers level but to ensure that they also carry along with the responsibility and accountability we are now coming out with a new management system of key result areas wherein they will be accountable and responsible for something and outcome that they should bring out of it also we have made all our tendering process completely transparent all commercial decision making that's why one of the company when the G won the tender and the some other company the large company lost out they said we are happy that we lost out because that process was so transparent and therefore this is something which are bringing in everything will be on eat and drink platform just before I was coming to Delhi I'm sorry coming to Washington DC in Delhi on a Monday I launched a new program in which all the ongoing works of the railways one can watch on a mobile because everything the ongoing progress can be monitored on a mobile so we'll be able to fix the responsibility we are able to find out because we have hundreds of tons of scrap lying all over nobody knows so now we are able to identify the scrap which is lying so it will be sold on time we will be able to do preventive maintenance we'll be able to bring an accountability how the money spent and the outcomes of that can be seen online so all the changes they are making so it's not just making physical progress but also changing the management culture of it and we are doing quite a bit of it we also started a human resource audit unheard of in government probably anywhere in the world so we started a human resource audit that report will be available in the next two months time the Deloitte is doing it and we'll then be able to find out the idea is to bring in more productivity to the entire system so it's a long way to go changes are not easy changing attitude is far more difficult and yesterday that's what we're discussing the all the world bank experts whether and they're asking me how to change the attitude I said that's something as a lawmaker I would feel the very easy thing to do let we go to the congress capitol it's not from far from here and get a law passed change of attitude law so there will be no problem then from next day it will change so this is not as simple as passing the law because law can be passed easily even despite the fact that there may not be agreement with both the sides on the congress but still a law can be passed but attitude with even agreement is impossible to achieve because agreement can be achieved very simply but how to change the attitude subsequent to that so therefore changing attitude is a long way a long haul issue and we are tend to work on that and to make that happen so many things are to fall in place at the same time we are putting the money the corporate goals in place bringing in transparency of process empowering our own people giving them incentives at the same time making them accountable so many of these things we are doing at the same time so over a period of time we hope we'll have a type of transportation infrastructure which is so critical for India's overall economic growth as well because our two thirds of the revenue for the railways come from bulk transportation of cargo and therefore when India has to grow at 8% 9% the cargo that will be handled will be far more than this so we are now created a new project called dedicated freight corridor so will be this about 16 billion dollar project very advanced stage of completion once that is completed only on that dedicated corridor only freight trains will run so that will bring in efficiency of operation railways will get more revenue as well as the present tracks which are used for both passengers and goods will be freed from that traffic and at the same time because we are enhancing their ability capacity both will happen same time so passenger traffic also will move faster so next three four years you'll see a significant change in the ways the railways are running so all of these things are happening at the same time so the challenge is how do you make sure that we don't lose the tracks so we are working on it thanks to our Prime Minister who is probably the first Prime Minister who has taken so much interest in railways so wherever he goes in India outside he talks about the railways because he believes that railway is an engine of growth and which it really will become in the next few years time so I look forward to railways succeeding because railway is environment friendly it ensures that even the poorest of the poor can travel in fact Mahatma Gandhi when he came to India and he started his tour of India of course discovery of India was written by Jawaharlal Nehru but it was truly his discovery he did through the trains and he said train is a great leveler though that time there was a first class was resolved for only a few classes of people but railway even today has the ability to link different sections of society different geographies like no other so therefore social development economic development and obviously the environment development would all happen if we combine if you bring in railway as an engine of growth which we want time to do so actually thank you very much thank you I look forward to more such opportunities meeting such distinguished people and sharing dice with you I am sure I've always I nobody says that I'm an astrologer but I'm sure soon we'll see even some few next few years time actually playing a key role sitting about deciding US is foreign policy in the next few years time I'm sure so it's very great privilege to be sitting next to you thank you very much thank you minister minister minister that was a tour of the force I I have to let you know that Mr. Prabhu came into the city just a day ago and at this juncture because of travel and jet lag he's really a very tired person and to be able to still provide that to the horizon was really quite remarkable I'm going to abuse the privilege of being next to you to ask you two questions which I think might also be on the minds of those in our audience before I throw it open when you laid out the capitalization plan you talked of a 142 billion dollars as being the capital outlay and 25 billion of those being raised through LIC is there a gap is there a deficit in how the balance will be financed or do you have enough resources through the national checker as I was saying yeah in any case this is more or less completely tied up world bank of course if they give you we can take a low-cost loan in which when we prepared this plan it didn't include what I told about 13 14 billion dollars plan of bullet train that was not included in that so this is the outside of that it did not include the plan of financing dedicated Fed called which is again outside of it does not include the we have made some joint ventures with several PSU public sector undertakings like coal India and others they are using their money and we are developing it that does not include in this then we are also going out with the 17 states the joint venture for the first time in which the railways as I said was completely centralized so it's not only we are delegating power of management of railways but also ownership of railways in a way that state governments will join hands with us that can bring in easily more than maybe 50 60 billion dollars or even more that again is not included in this but this plan because finance ministry in any case this gives us about 10 billion dollars about around that figure 8 to 10 billion dollars so that will come anyway so the money that is what we really needed was about 30 40 billion dollars 25 billion dollars there and now we have got more than that in terms of this of course we can also draw from the domestic market recently when a prime minister went to London I had gone there before that the UK market the London market as well as LSE and others are very enthusiastic about India raising rupee bonds yes so we'll be able to raise from that we'll build so money is not a real a problem money always there the challenge was how do you now the one of the challenge I am facing today is capital expenditure is there money for that but revenue is a problem because of pay commission that has put us enormous burden on us about almost six billion dollars of extra salaries we'll have to pay yes and I don't think we can solve it in this particular present scenario so we have to find a solution to that so that is a challenge otherwise I think we are on track to achieve what you want to do now I'll ask a second question before I go to the floor I grew up in India at a time when George Fernandez and the railway unions were essentially a word on everyone's mouth as you push through the reorganization particularly the delegation of authority from the center to different branches of the railway what is the response that you're getting from labor because it is a huge labor force and as you point out a very important component of the railway family you know I was I mean George Fernandez was my colleague in the cabinet as well as for a like for me is a hero so he's great and then as the destiny would have it he laid the first ever biggest strike of India in 1974 and little later in I think 1989 he became the railway minister so you know the leader also the railway minister so I've used a great I'm lucky to be succeeding such a great leader the unions are very strong because they are the largest number luckily we have been able to work with them very well because firstly they know why we are doing all this if you're doing it for some personal benefit they would have opposed it and then we also have a regular dialogue with them and what is good for the railways is good for the railway employees so if it is not good for the railways they had a probably a garage so there could be a difference of opinion about the approach so what language you use and others but as far as if the railway is going to do well why would anybody have a problem so that they realize that railway has to do well for the employees to benefit from it the biggest stakeholder in railways are the employees so therefore I think we have been able to work very well with them I don't think you have any issue with them of course on certain matters they will come and we discussed with them we have created a very interesting organization called Kayakalp council which is actually business engineering council so this is the whole idea but the name is Kayakalp which is like reinventing the railway so this council is chaired by Mr. Atantata who used to be the chairman of the largest industry group in India and the other two members are the two union leaders so I said you know you discuss your ideas we like to implement so we have to work with them and some people of course will think that you know the reform means you have to fight with them so in that extent we are not reforming because we don't fight with them but otherwise if you can work with them properly we understand each other better and we try to work for the benefit of the railways I think that's what we are doing so I don't have any issue really great wonderful well I'm going to open to the floor please identify yourself and keep your remarks your questions as pointed as possible so I can include as many people in the in the conversation yes thank you thank you for your your comment earlier is this on thank you so thanks for your comments and the humor you shared and what have you and I it's an honor for GE to have won the the recent tender and I wanted to make a few comments about that one you mentioned about jobs and in India and jobs in the US and that is a serious matter for us and it's certainly something that is a boost for us and we manufacture in a place in northeast Pennsylvania eerie Pennsylvania that is going through some pretty tough times so there are positive consequences to to this this this relationship on the US side in terms of jobs you mentioned transparency I think that had GE lost the tender I would still be saying we we felt that the process was was highly transparent that the process for the tenor which which lasts about six months was occurred and unfolded as as was laid out and predicted so we felt that process wise and treatment wise it could not have been better as you went through the infrastructure priorities of the government it was somewhat breathtaking as you talk about railroads and surface transportation ports airports etc we're going to be building a facility in in Bihar as you well know will be in a green fields area so in a somewhat undeveloped or unreasonably more remote area there are high high demands on localization that we need to make in terms of the content of the product in a very short period so I just want to get your thoughts on and you mentioned labor I want to get your thoughts on workforce training and preparation for a lot of these projects not just railway but some of the other initiatives that you mentioned it's obviously a big piece of what we're looking at and certainly something my my guess is that you've done a lot of thinking about what what do you want labor force labor force preparation for all these projects labor yeah how's labor being prepared you know we see basically as you know we have many programs so each program actually finally converges into making India stronger economy or bigger economy in the work period of time so if you know I mean as we all know the whole growth process is brought about by leveraging two important elements of inputs one is a labor there isn't natural resources the third which is the capital which is available anywhere in the world and that's fungible so that moves from one place to another faster than aircraft can reach one place to another so now we can go very quickly so now the India's great advantage of labor force so our prime minister other program is skilling India so we are trying to make actually we have a lot of work is being done right now a lot of programs are launched so the idea will be depending upon the demand from the market how do you convert a human capital as a useful input for that requirement of that particular project so that is what we are doing so we have a national program but we also try to localize it in terms of the local requirement of that particular place and that particular sector to prepare them so this is something which we are doing in a big way this program is already launched some time ago and prime minister personally reviews it regularly so skilling is a major part of a program so making India is something will be the hand in hand will go with the skilling India program along with that we are doing digital India program so that's a major program so I don't think without the digital connectivity this twitter solution was possible so this is also an example of how the digital connectivity is going to help in improving our governance and in terms of delivering our services so that is another key element of that and in fact I would feel that digital India and skill India will again go hand in hand because now we'll be able to impart training of a very high quality not necessarily in the brick and mortar places but also through other platforms and that's why the skill India will also possible because so we are doing that absolutely you're right that's not right very much mr. minister for that great presentation we've known you as an innovator in all six cabinet positions you've had this is no exception the part of innovation I'd like to ask you about it has to do with your vision for the railways in using solar power and using renewables in order to be able to make an impact on all three areas that you talked about oh that's very important question equally as I was telling you earlier that the challenge is how to meet the new liability which has come from pay commission so the only way we can do that is of course by revenue which has a limitation because you cannot just increase revenue by 30 40 percent suddenly but at the same time another thing we are started doing that is to reduce our cost so after salaries and pension the second big cost is energy so we started a major program for I was also minister of energy so therefore I brought in some knowledge from there and this year we are able to save something like 700 million dollars of energy cost next because this I got only part of the year first part of my year went into convincing my colleague it is possible and then next part six months was to make it actually happen so the first six months were most difficult next six months were not already difficult to save the money so now we got next year we were able to save a more than a billion dollar and that will be continuous process for doing so many things but one other thing that we are doing is bringing more and more solar energy into railways because we are the large footprint so we are land we are railway stations so rooftop is possible or we can use the building facade we can empty land can be used for that so we are doing solar as well as we started just one wind turbine in Rajasthan in Jaisalmer very recently solar is going in a big way we are more than 100 but we will reach about 1000 megawatts soon and it could be probably the biggest producer of solar energy and then we have program for shifting to LED lights because lighting is also one of the major source of consumption and for traction power we are also doing on an experimental basis putting on top of the train a solar panel so this again very experimental it is too preliminary but we are trying to do that so the whole idea is to do energy audit to understand where is the potential for saving do energy saving program being in solar and wind energy also waste to energy though the small quantity but this was announced in my budget incidentally almost all the budget announcement have fulfilled so you know this was not a promise but actual reality so one of the promise was that we will put two waste to energy plants so which already put up we will want to do more the idea is to waste to energy is that we need critical mass to generate enough electricity so the municipal salt waste and so the city and railways combining together we will to generate far better waste to energy plant so we are doing all that also so what you are absolutely right this is one of the priority and we are taking it forward also incidentally sorry is did ask me but we are also doing water audit so because we never realized in Chennai in south India we saved almost a few million rupees by spying by looking at water issues because several millions of liters of water is used by the railways we never realize the water so because again bringing the prejudice of knowing about a little bit about water so I said we'll start water audit and that has resulted into saving this again is a very important issue yeah great speech if this is all true what you said that's what the Indians in India and Indian Americans are expecting my question is here that what role you think the Indian American rich community can play in your projects and if you are reaching them out for how they can help because they are there is a rich Indian American community in America and congratulations for Delhi Carnegie and what you are doing now what we're doing how you think will be a new change if you can explain a little bit about that because that Delhi will be added on your board in the near future maybe later you will ask me about if there is any gap in this 142 billion dollars if there is any gap you can fill it up well said here here yes sir just wait for the microphone please thank you passed also we've had very significant and very in a sense forward-looking programs in the railways and infrastructure in general and significant progress has been made but oftentimes things have fallen short and sometimes significantly short what is the difference this time apart from yourself being there i think just wait for four years then we'll tell you the difference so what you're done in one year is what we promised you have actually implemented so what we'll wait for four years to see how we implement what we have promised us now this that's why i'm saying the best answer to such question is to wait for a time to see that it's implemented or not because otherwise we can whatever answer you can give you say but there are still questions you know because the questions are there despite one year of implementation so those questions can be answered when you implement that's the best answer to a question but i am saying we are very laid out plan we are already implementing it this is all weighted by many institutions in the world the Morgan Stanley for the first time they made a research report on railways very bullishly put there the financial times carried a story on Monday just three days back on the railways for the first time again the very positive story on the railways so the other one of the top investment banker jm finance is also doing a research report on railways asking companies globally to invest into the railways the Nomura is also doing a research report on railways so now i don't know why they should be doing something like this if they had a great experience of railways in the past and now they feel that something is happening probably they would not be making a story wasting the time in research like this and they have legal liability as you know all these investment bankers when they do the research and try to promote something but still they're doing it so i think we'll just wait so this is a plan which is ready which is under implementation and we are not trying to put any false promises which cannot be put forward for a simple reason is that the performance itself is a promise like i was saying in the past the people is to declare a project and then so the announcement of a project in itself was considered as a project so what is your project so i announced it so that's my project so now over my project is finished because i announced it so my announcement itself was considered as a project so now we are not doing that in fact we are not announcing anything but project is getting implemented so that's good i request you to speak a little bit about your discussions with american counterparts here what you plan to discuss with them or what you discuss with them already and what you seeking from them and hopefully not the pricing structure actually i'm thankful to you because what i'm going to talk to the transport secretary if i tell you tomorrow but today then i don't want to go and meet him now because it's a good idea you're seeing the travel of going all the way to the transport department so i thank you for that good suggestion what i'm saying is what we are discussing with the transport what we are discussing with americans obviously is how can we have a meeting very good meeting with eczema bank with opiq we are also the commerce department the idea is that how could us and india whether the largest economy or there is a fastest-going economy both democracies having such a convergence of issues on many subjects how they could benefit from each other so we have a huge requirement for infrastructure us as a technology us may not be having money because most of the money is now in the bond market because us has borrowed that money so therefore the debt to gdp ratio is as equal to each other so there is equality and there is not inequality there but we having because of that probably the us may not be able to put the money that way but there is a pension fund available there are banking system which is so advanced in us there are very large sophisticated products could be developed by the us so these are all the opportunities we can explore together so the idea is that a travel of railways is never alone so because that's one of the advantages of railways that you always find a friend when you travel together so i think why not us and india be the fellow traveler in the journey for finding out how we can grow together faster yes workers who work on railways i would appreciate if you could maybe describe the nature of some of this corruption as well as the initiatives made that you guys are are starting to prevent and punish people who are corrupt this is corruption in the railways i think you need to re ask what corruption in the railways okay so what are your suggestions so i told you how we are trying to make it transparent i think you came despite that i'm nobody's claiming that it could be corruption free so give ideas to make it better because you are the experience of corruption right i i i don't but i i mean so transparent he's been something that i know one is on the years third of corruption that's one thing correct but second is therefore based on that you are making a comment i can understand because this is a general comment if you have specific experience of having corruption we can deal with that problem by dealing with the situation so if either of the two you can give ideas you're saying that we are making in our own way everything possible to make it transparent everything is eat and drink everything is being done like this but despite that you have any ideas i don't have any ideas but i will say that even at the lowest levels of when you know when a passenger is getting on a train for example just a couple of weeks ago i was getting on a train and there was a long line and the train is actually still get onto the train and the fact that corruption is inappropriate seen as a shameful thing for people to do and that really takes a cultural shift which is a huge kind of problem and huge project that would have to be undertaken over the long run and that i would hope could be started now let's have any yes sir very inspiring address sir i'm honoris over so i'm a partner for the interstate traveler company in detroit michigan and i have to say up front india is not part of my turf but i come regularly to the Carnegie endowment for international peace when i'm not in vietnam or other places i work so why since your interest since your important role with the rail structure and the unions and the your interest in in responding to his question on you know clean environment what my company has invented and yet not produced but they have invented it and it's apparently a feasible design a magnetic levitation solar powered running on the rays of the sun in the daytime with a little mechanism to convert excess solar power to hydrogen fuel for nocturnal operations so day and night 100 renewable energy running high above the land at high speed i'm trying to get it started in the united states to be honest and um but um we have partners who focus on south asia and so i the most i would dare to ask you today is do you have if our partners haven't contacted you do you have a point of contact you would like me to steer one of our partners to i just had the honor of meeting the commercial counselor in the embassy here i could start there with a full you know not only introducing the person but also giving them the giving her the concept of what it's about and i'd be happy to do that but i just like to know your thought no sure absolutely because it's not just for the railways see as you know the biggest environment the renewable energy program in the world is india's launch so we are going to make about 100 000 megawatts of solar power and 70 000 megawatts of wind power and that's another seven years time so we have a very large program and this is a big priority for india we of course the changing and falling oil prices have made that dramatic change into the entire renewable energy scenario of the world because you know if the now as goldman sacks once expecting it to be $200 now they're expecting $20 so if the goldman sacks this time comes correct and right $20 in the next few weeks or few months would mean that the solar power has to compete with this new benchmark but still india has a very ambitious program of 170 000 megawatts of renewable energy so this will be a very good idea we can definitely and we have a dedicated ministry for this we are the renewable energy ministry which is independent standalone ministry and we are very dynamic minister who was here recently today is in japan time to lobby for renewable energy collaboration with japan so we'll be definitely very happy to look at it yes and my question is about uh prime minister is uh prime minister wanted to build 100 smart cities so looking through the lens of that initiative where do you see the most opportunities for u.s companies to contribute to india's transportation infrastructure growth you know that's uh that's what i was proposing that we have about 14 countries i think we have umbral agreement in which you work with them very closely with us also we are understanding but as you were asking me earlier we only proposed to the us that probably we could have a common agreement so that u.s companies could participate in a many ways because g of course is participated so that something which is going to bring in a very state of art technology for manufacturing of locomotives which will be environment friendly less noise very using very energy efficient operation and also in the process because that will all be made in india will create a huge ecosystem for the manufacture see when such a large manufacturing takes place you cannot just do manufacturing all of that in your own shop floor you really have a linkage of that with the entire ecosystem in which the supply chain will get developed so the huge benefit to india the small and medium enterprises and also create employment will bring in the technology transfers so the spin-off benefit also will be huge so u.s companies will be more than welcome to participate in this process there are already quite a few doing that but what we are planning to do is to have even more deeper agreement and um working closer working relationship so that u.s companies can also take benefit of this huge program and we'll also benefit in the process because we'll get best technology new idea new knowledge so this is what and of course we are requesting all of them to make in india so this makes even economic sense because the low cost of manufacturing as uh you was asking earlier the manpower is available and if you train manpower is used so that you know benefit that manufacture in india for a global operation it also makes a lot of sense well on behalf of all of you i want to really thank you minister for taking the time and coming to coming here i wish i could send you back to your hotel room to get some rest but the minister has to go back to the meetings of the world bank so it's going to be a long day by the time you're really done i want to thank you for breaking away and coming to address us here and i hope we can welcome you back again here while you're still in your current portfolio or in any other portfolio that you may have and thanks to all of you for coming this afternoon look forward to seeing you again take care so