If India has to grow, we have to bridge infra deficit: Nath

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Q: So no compromise and no rolling backs?

 

A: I do not know where this stands now and I do not know what is being negotiated but I do know that the stand the cabinet approved before Copenhagen was the right stand.

 

Q: A little bit about you now - you are now a minister in important infrastructure portfolio, many people would argue that the portfolio should be expanded to include infrastructure generally, would you accept that?

 

A: I think the content here is so much - when I have said that we are going to do seven thousand kilometers of roads per year, from June we will start this and we will do 20 km per day, I said this in June, I took over on June 1 of last year - 7,000 km to complete you need to have 20,000 km of work in progress which means two lakh crore of work in progress. Now to put all this and if I were to do all the justice, I don't think I can do justice if there is much more in this ministry.

 

Q: So you are quite happy with this?

 

A: Because of the deficit, you are starting with the huge infrastructure deficit and at the heart of that infrastructure deficit lies roads. So I think that's an enormous task and it has a domestic foot print. My earlier job was international and was conceptual and sometimes even talking is progress but in this talking is not progress but building of roads is progress.

 

Q: You don't see this as a demotion at all as many people in the media said when you were appointed?

 

A: It depends how one perceives it; domestically I have a job which affects and impacts every district in this country. For five years when I was a commerce minister no MP or no Chief Minister needed me. Now I engage with everybody.

 

Q: That is one way, what is the other way of looking at it?

 

A: One is domestic and one is international.

 

Q: When I said it is a demotion, you said it depends on how you look at it one way of looking at it is this- so I am asking you what is the other way of looking at it.

 

A: I don't see this as a demotion at all and I think it was the right thing. I don't want to comment on it but maybe this was - I didn't want to. I thought I had done too much in that earlier job. I had built up India's profile, foreign investment, foreign direct investment that moved from USD 2 billion to USD 28 billion, we had exports shot up from USD 60 billion to USD 160 billion, all that was done and now what was there to be done, the momentum of it was there.

 

Q: There was talk of you are the potential foreign minister?

 

A: Again that is conceptually. That for somebody who is engaged in very active politics - I do not know whether that is the right job but then once you are put into anything, you will go about with the honesty and I have always believed in life that there is a difference between achievement and fulfillment. The challenge is how do you make achievement and fulfillment converge and fulfillment comes of how you are able to do what you are assigned to do.

 

Q: You weren't annoyed when you heard you are getting this ministry?

 

A: Not at all.

 

Q: There were speculations in media that they took too long to announce your portfolio.

 

A: All the portfolios were announced together.

 

Q: There were speculations in that sense that all the portfolios are being delayed because there was disagreement on what to give Kamal Nath?

 

A: No, I don't think so - I don't think I was the issue at all because my thing is very simple, perhaps one and the most simple decisions.

 

Q: If there will be reshuffles, you want to stick with this, you want to try something else?

 

A: Again I say this is a question of fulfillment. I want to see put this into place and I don't want to see myself dislocated before I have been able to say that yes, I achieved this.

 

Q: How long will that be?

 

A: I think it is going to be another three years before I can say that. I am very happy being here because I think if India is to grow, we have to bridge this infrastructure deficit. What is our biggest challenge is an infrastructure deficit and when you talk of infrastructure, you talk of roads, you talk about creating economic activity in all parts of countries, in the most backward parts of the countries and that again is the future of our Indian economy. That is what is when you look at the overall macro and the whole architecture of growth, you will point your finger there.

 

Q: Let me summarise some of the things you have said in the course of this interview, you have said that whenever you went into negotiations whether it was environment, whether it was commerce, you always put India's interest first just as Western negotiators put Western interest first that you didn't listen so much to what the Westerns said, you looked at what they did, if they had tariff barriers non-tariff barriers, subsidies you didn't pay much attention to what they were lecturing us. Therefore you took the lines and you still take the lines that this is a lesson we should remember, you are looking at the collapse of Wall Street, the global recession, the global economic crisis as another lesson to us that we stayed where we were, we did better in many ways because we realized we need an India specific pattern and India specific reforms and as per yourself you are not annoyed, you are quite happy with the ministry.

 

A: I am very happy.