Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said the stance of both the industries is not in national interest, given the infrastructure spends lined up. (File) Finding a direction to make the country self-reliant is the need of the hour and is the collective responsibility of society, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Tuesday.
“It is not just the responsibility of government but also the collective responsibility of people from various fields like health, education, research and so on in society,” said Gadkari.
He was addressing students on ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ at the Symbiosis golden jubilee lecture series.
Gadkari said that the two sectors – rural economy and agriculture – are important for ‘aatmanirbharta’ of the country and work needs to be done on these aspects with a vision. He said strengthening the rural population, increasing exports and cutting down imports will make India self-reliant.
He said alternatives need to be found to products whose imports are considerably higher, like crude oil, adding that farmers can produce ethanol from sugarcane, which is an alternate source of fuel.
He said the target of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises is to increase the turnover of the rural industry to Rs 5 lakh crore from Rs 80,000 crore over the next two years.
