Businesses need to invest in clean energy tech, says Kant
NEW DELHI: Indian businesses need to aggressively invest in research and development of clean energy technology to tap the huge growth potential that the climate change crisis has presented for this sunrise sector, NITI Aayog chief executive officer Amitabh Kant said on Thursday.
Speaking at the virtual annual meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Kant said that India can achieve the ambition of becoming a global leader in clean energy technology only if the industry invests in cutting edge technology. This, he said, was needed in areas such as hydrogen, advanced solar panels, and next-generation batteries.
Kant was speaking on the subject “India’s development transition and climate change.”
Kant said that the world is making a transition to a new growth pathway in the face of climate change and that India cannot become a global manufacturing or export hub by copying the China model but needs to evolve its growth strategy.
“India cannot be the next factory of the world by copying China. We are to create our own growth model, which will put Indian products all over the world,” Kant said.
He added that the only way to achieve this was through creating clean technology and products such as low-cost green hydrogen. “We have to create a green brand for India that is respected and admired all over the world,” said Kant.
Kant explained that the world was rapidly moving towards green industries. These are the industries that would be attracting finance, capital and technology. “And these companies alone will add value, and old industries will wither away. This is the writing on the wall that old industries will die and the green and digital industries will be the ones of the future,” he said.
Kant pointed out to business leaders what he felt were the weaknesses in the Indian industry at present.
“India’s current industrial profile is characterized by these factors: cost-effective, mediumquality products with islands of product excellence, lack of highvalue, cutting-edge innovative products and hence low exports, decent value-added growth but less-job growth, the high carbon intensity of manufacturing and structural deficiencies due to logistics, power and capital costs. This status quo, to my mind, cannot continue if we are to make Indian products globally competitive, and this is the time for us to establish a new identity of quality and reliability,” Kant told business leaders.