Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has said that increased metal recycling can bring down the cost of auto components by 30 per cent and automatically increase the industry’s export competitiveness.
Addressing the three-day conference of the Material Recycling Association of India on material recycling on February 3 through videoconferencing, the minister said the government has set a target of doubling the size of the automobile sector to Rs 15 lakh crore and creating an additional 5 crore jobs. India overtook Japan to become the world’s third largest automobile market in 2022.
The international conference in Kochi was attended by over 2,000 delegates from across the world.
Noting that India faces shortages in copper, aluminium and steel, Nitin Gadkari encouraged the recycling industry to get into joint ventures with foreign companies so that the scale of the industry that is highly unorganised can increase. He also appealed to the automobile manufacturers to set up large scrapping units and offered them concessions at the forthcoming new dry ports in Wardha, Sangli and Kolhapur in Maharashtra. Noting that the whole world is adopting a “waste to wealth” philosophy, he said the government will do everything to encourage more imports of scrap so that our shortage of key metals can be addressed.
