Ai Nvidia Chips Infra China Railways 12 Years Of Modi Govts Hits Misses Ashwini Vaishnaw

TITLE: nVFBxGXI81c CHANNEL: Unknown DATE: ---TRANSCRIPT--- Thank you sir for speaking with ANI and congratulations on the completion of 12 years. What does it feel like

for the entire country? It’s a great uh moment because for decades we have had governments which were not so sensitive towards people’s needs. The last uh 12 years people have seen a new form of governance. People have seen that sensitivity. People have seen that care for the people and the people at the bottom of the pyramid. people with lowest incomes, they have seen a change in their lives. Right. So, u since 2014, what would you categorize as one of your biggest hits uh one or several of the hits that you feel have impacted on improving people’s lives and what your ambitions were for uh governance? One on that and second where do you think that there is a lot more to be done to achieve those goals? uh if you look at the journey of last 12 years the change in people’s lives which has happened at the grassroots level that is really visible look at the way toilets brought dignity to women uh look at the way financial inclusion happened more than 54 cr accounts opened in under the jan dhan yojana all those people today have access to investment opportunities access to loans access to savings instruments that thing has entirely changed. Look at the number of houses which have been constructed 4 cr houses more than four cr houses constructed in the entire country. Look at the way each and every village has got the basic facilities like good roads like electricity connections. All these things have really made a big difference in people’s lives. Our prime minister has given us the target of 2047 Vixit Bharat which means a lot more has to be done to reach that level where the basic needs and the the basic human needs and the basic infrastructure which we have been able to achieve till today needs to be taken to the level of a developed country. Lot more needs to be done on that and we are relentlessly working in that direction. So in these 12 years there are two major shocks which have hit the Indian economy. One is the COVID crisis and the second one uh is the West Asia crisis. Now despite these two crisis, do you feel that you will be able to reach uh the goals that have been set forward for this country and for the government? Yes, we will be and the reason for that is the entire growth strategy is very clearly thought through. It’s basically there are four pillars on which this entire growth strategy rests. Pillar one is focus on investment. Investment in physical, digital and social infrastructure. Pillar two is huge amount of inclusive growth. The examples I gave you about toilet construction, house construction, opening Janhan accounts, having 80 cr people at the basic uh ration every month. This is probably the biggest inclusive growth program that anywhere in the world we have seen. Uh third is the big focus on manufacturing and innovation. Fourth is lot of simplification. More than 1,600 laws have been removed from the uh statute book. Lots and lots of simplification examples are there. Whether it is telecom sector, railway sector I can speak of, right? Every sector lot of simplification has happened. So the this very wellthought through strategy is holding us good despite the shocks and we have seen the contrast with 2008 the global financial crisis compared to that the way our economy has handled under prime minister Shindarendra Modi G’s leadership the economy has handled the two shocks reasonably well so um one of the major flagship was make India right from 2014 12 years later when we talking about GDP it’s waiverss between 15 to 17%. What really went wrong? Why didn’t it come up higher than what it should have? This is something which makes uh news worldwide when foreign investment uh we are trying to attract more. The the talk always is the GDP is not as much as it should be. So I’ll give you two examples of uh successful make in India. First is electronics. If you look at the export categories throughout last 30 40 years, electronics was never among the top four or top five uh exported items. It would have been maybe uh far below but 2025 electronics emerged as the third largest category for exported goods out of India. And if you look at um the single uh single most exported item earlier it used to be traditionally it used to be diesel and then used to be gems and jewelry then used to be textiles, garments, engineered goods. Last year it was mobile phones. Um our electronics production has grown six times in the last decade and exports have grown um eight times in the last decade. um we are having employment of about 25 lakh persons employed in the electronic sector. Okay. So that kind of thing we have seen how these are new jobs you’re talking about. These are new jobs 25 lakh new jobs in the electronic sector in the last few years. So that that kind of expansion is there in defense manufacturing in technical textile manufacturing in automobile manufacturing sector after sector. I can give you one more example. Um when you look at the railway manufacturing the most important and the most difficult part is the whole railway electronics part of it which is like 40% of cost of a train is railway electronics. Last year we started exporting railway electronics to guess what to Germany to Switzerland to France to Italy and to US. So that kind of thing has started happening in a country in such a um big way and see it to to to have that inertia of 40 50 years it has taken some time to reach this level and the growth is now very sustained. So um there were large scale labor inensive jobs which were say in textile in footwware and uh and like you said electronics uh assembly but uh these were initially envisioned that you know these would be the jobs but uh of late one has seen that uh in textiles and in in the farm and uh you know unorganized sector it’s low productivity jobs which are happening. it’s not happening in the high sector jobs. So what what is it that can incentivize more job creation in the country? So what would you say the uh the example that I gave you about electronics about the let’s say the railway electronics part right is that a low productivity or a high product high productivity because of yeah and for even for the um even for the electronics which is consumed within the country these are all high productivity jobs look at semiconductor chips the the manufacturing of semiconductors was like a dream for last more than six decades prime minister nu tried tried, Prime Minister Indra Gandhi tried. I mean multiple attempts were taken in the past and finally we have success today that is low productivity or high productivity. There’s certainly high value chain item. There are many such examples I can give out of defense production. I can give in the engineering goods for example precision electronics uh sorry the precision uh components. Today we have started exporting precision components for the entire aviation sector out of India. These are very high value low volume because you are not going to produce too many of the precision parts low volume but very high value. Many such examples can be given. So u you spoke about the chip industry there is with regard to AI uh there’s a lot of talk u you know uh which says that with artificial intelligence coming in India has lost out the race uh as a result of that uh foreign institutional investors feel that India is not really the success story for AI it’s lagging behind made an entrance too late and now uh we are playing catch-up so they’d rather invest in say a Korea or in a Taiwan what would you say to that? Certainly many other countries have uh very wellestablished ecosystems. For example, the example that you gave from uh Korea and Taiwan. Korea has had a very strong semiconductor industry for decades. Taiwan practically uh 40% of the economy comes from electronics and semiconductors. These countries have built that entire ecosystem over four five decades. We started this journey few years ago. So certainly the comparison with uh those countries on the uh semiconductor or the AI field would uh certainly be I would say um not very um accurate but I would say that the countries which use AI for increasing their productivity, the countries which have huge amount of AI diffusion, they are the ones which are going to have significant benefits coming from this new wave of technology. From what I hear from the industry, practically every sector in India is today using AI in a very big way. AI diffusion is the thing people are using small models which are available in opensource and from our AI cos from the AI mission we have made about uh 700 odd small models which are accessible to the people free of cost. Mhm. People are using those to get the productivity gains using AI. I can give you examples from railways in the maintenance activities in predicting the load uh the passenger load which is going to happen at a particular station in better enforcement of law and order. How are you using AI to predict that more trains are needed say during time holidays trains because uh we just see still those visuals of overcrowding during these peak seasons if you’re using AI how come you didn’t know so last chhat durau puja the entire history of railways if you look at it each durauja chhat and summer season used to be a major major challenge for everybody. last entire last uh financial year if you look at it we ran 80,000 special trains based on the analysis of where the load is coming from and entire I would say entire durapuja and chut there was congress did try to put some old visuals and then they retracted but by and large people were able to travel this entire holi went off very reasonably well I would Okay, summer season is right now going on. By now we have operated about 13,000 special trains already and summer season ends somewhere in end of June. That is when the people would coming start coming back to their uh after the summer vacation is over. So till end of the June we’ll be running about 18,000 or maybe 20,000 special trains. But why is it still difficult uh for ease of travel in the sense that uh you know get booking a ticket getting it you’re on the wait list you know last 60 70 years the investment in railways was peanuts it was like 20,000 cr or something prime minister Modi increased started increasing it in 2014 he merged the budgets railway budget used to be a separate budget general budget used to be a separate budget in 2016 he merged the both the budgets from 35,000 cr rupes investment he has brought it to 2A 72,000 cr rupes it’s a slack of 50 60 years which has to be filled up in the last 10 years it’s still mode of transport for the middle class and lower middle class absolutely and that is what our focus is in just after the co we have added about 2,000 more train services after co and in the next 5 years we want to add at least 3,000 more special more regular trains. Once you add that many number of trains and to do that you need more capacity. That’s why when you look at the entire growth strategy the first pillar of investment we have been able to add about 36,000 km of railway tracks. You need a railway track to run a train. Right? 36,000 km of railway tracks have been added. This is not upgradation. This is new tracks. Upgradation is of the order of about 75,000 km. Okay. that is of the order of 75,000 km. Now about 80% of our tracks are already upgraded in the last. So so much has happened which is not really you know which see you see when you see a new train you see something right but the work which is done before that to enable that train to move that is the work which has gone in that grunt work that that huge effort which has gone in upgrading the infra getting the train safe uh improving the safety practices improving the maintenance practices all these are there which has to be done and that is being done also like when I said about booking tickets the the ease of uh the cleanliness aspect the ease of uh travel just to make it a pleasant experience like you have in Europe or you have in the developed countries even in Southeast Asia when you take a train it’s a pleasant experience of from the time of booking the ticket reaching the platform getting into the train and reaching your destination here it’s always this bathroom’s not clean everything is not safe you will definitely see these changes you have already see you you can already see these changes in so many of our trains. If you look at the stations how they were 10 years ago and look at the stations how they are today. So many people have given this feedback there. So many people so many foreigners have made videos about their travel in the uh train in the recent times and that change is visible. That change is visible. I would say lot more work has to go in. Huge amount of effort has to go in and we are putting that effort. We are relentlessly working on that. Okay. And the results are visible. The bullet train project bullet train project has progressed very well. Mhm. We are constructing almost 15 km a month. Uh by now practically the entire Gujarat section out of that. The first section that we have taken as a priority section surora that will be inaugurated next year in August 2027. And after that section by section then after Surat Bilimura we’ll be opening Wii to Surat then we’ll be opening Wii to Ahmedabad and then Tane to Ahmedabad and then Mumbai to Ahmedabad. So that entire section will be open and then the next corridors we have already started working on them. These corridors will bring a huge change. Mumbai Ahmedabad journey will become 1 hour and 57 minutes under 2 hours. Uh Mumbai Pune journey will become 48 minutes. 48 minutes. Chennai Bangaluru journey will be 73 minutes. Um then Chennai the Bangaluru Hyderabad journey will be 2 hours and 8 minutes. Pune to Hyderabad journey will be just about two 2 hours and few minutes. Um Lacno to Delhi journey will be about 2 hours. Okay. So would you say that the bullet train is is one of the uh success stories of the India story which which you want to project to the rest of the world because connectivity is something which is so important for it is for connectivity our government has built airports almost double the number of airports that was that were built in the country in 70 years right it’s it’s these are these are numbers which are truly there on the ground the number of highways that we have built 58,000 km of highways, 36,000 km of railway tracks, 100% almost 99.4% of electrification, entire railway track. Look at Europe. No other country has this this number right at this scale. Uh UK is about some 30% or something. Uh Germany would be about 60% or something. So that kind of electrification we have taken up in our country and we have successfully delivered it on the ground. Right? So these are real changes which have happened in the country. When we were talking about AI, we move towards railways. I want to come back to uh artificial intelligence and the Indian uh semiconductor. What is that that you have next? So this is these are the first like digressing but these are the first two um chips which are commercially manufactured in India. This one is Micron which uh started commercial uh production on 28th February. This date is known for some other things also. 28th February 2026 and this is chip by Kes which started commercial production 31st March this year. There are 12 uh plants which are uh approved under the semiconductor mission. Two of them have started the commercial production these two Micron and K& another one CG semi will start commercial production in July middle of July somewhere and uh by end of this year we’ll have four units which are having commercial production and we started the journey just on 1st Jan of 2022 such a short time frame we have been able to have reach this level. What is the allocation that you have made for the semiconductor mission for 2.0? Um semiconductor mission 2.0 will have a different contour. Okay. The first mission was to start the uh industry in a country and it’s a extremely complex industry. If you have to understand the complexity of this, look at the nail, right? Suppose you were to write ANI on this. Okay? With a little bit of practice, you can write it. Suppose you have to write the entire Ramayan on this. Full Ramayan. I’m saying then write the full Mahabharat on this. Imagine the finness which will be required. So when you uh actually fabricate this wafer and uh put the uh put the chip design on this wafer. This is a silicon wafer on which the chip is designed. You work at such precision which uh even a human eye with a microscope cannot see. It has to be done in that kind of environment. Even one dust particle in a room of this size can create uh contamination. So that level of precision is really really difficult. So we have been able to achieve that in the first part of our semiconductor mission. Mhm. We have now talent more than 75,000 engineers are trained in this. More than 300 universities are teaching the students to design chips. Two nanometer chips are designed in India. The most advanced chips in the world including Nvidia chips, including Intel chips, they are all designed in India now. And with this manufacturing journey, make India journey, we have made a good presence in the world. World today recognizes India as a country which will become a major semiconductor designing and manufacturing country in the coming years. And now in the semi semicon 2.0, our focus will be on getting the other parts of the ecosystem into place. the machines which manufacture semiconductors. These are extremely extremely complex and highly concentrated in three or four countries. We would like to get those manufacturing and design activities to India. Second, we’ll certain we have a large talent base for designing chips. In the first uh version of the semiconductor mission, we could get about 40 startups which design semiconductor chips and they are getting VC funding now. That’s the deep tech part of the um startup world and uh it has made very good progress. In semicon 2.0 we would have design as the number one priority. Design number one priority. uh the machines which go into manufacturing of semiconductors, the chemicals and the gases. There are about 250 chemicals and about 50 gases which go into manufacturing a chip. So all that we would like to focus on in the second part of the uh mission and we certainly would be what the kind of interest that the world has today um and the success with which our country has delivered the world certainly will be coming up in much larger numbers in the second version. the you were talking about uh getting uh creating an ecosystem supply chain issues in this are there problems very complex supply chain it’s extremely complex supply chain to give you certain some examples in a semiconductor fab if you’re let’s say there is a long pipe which has which is delivering a very pure form of a particular chemical if the pipe is not welded exactly in the way it has to be welded or If it is not um uh uh twisted exactly in the way it has to be uh fitted there then the chemical would would get contaminated. If the chemical has to travel just 1 m extra then it won’t be fit for producing the chips. So it’s extremely complex supply chain and that is what we have been able to achieve in the first version in such a short time of 4 years. So that that’s the focus of our prime minister. 12 years he has given us a new way of working and taking up large challenges. That Chennab bridge that you see there that Chennab bridge was unthinkable. Um 12 years ago if you would talk of Chennab bridge this entire project was given up. Nobody was working on this project anymore. After doing that Baramula to Shinagar section which is there on a plane in the valley side nobody was working on this project then Pan bridge inside the sea taking such projects the atal tunnel the kind of projects which have been taken up the difficulty with which these projects were viewed earlier our prime minister has given given us that um that entire zeal of working in a way by which we can take up these challenges. So when we talk about uh these highly complex uh industries um what would you say to the youth of the country? Should they go for pure sciences? Should they study uh these subjects which is artificial intelligence, engineering when you’re showing the bridge? Should they get into these jobs uh to these courses so that they can get into uh these streams and then have hope of getting these jobs or are they so skilled that you can only depend on um on you know talent which is coming from outside India? Absolutely not. This bridge has been done manufactured by Indians. There are such great human stories. uh one person who started his career as a junior engineer and he’s now the chief uh project manager of this project they are all Indians we must take the best from every part of the world yes but it is our engineers who are doing this wand train that you see fully designed by Indian engineers manufactured by Indian welders and Indian fitters and Indian technicians the reason I’m asking you sir is because there are many experts who are coming on television and who are writing opeds that all we do is screwdriver technology. It’s all coming. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Get that steel block from the room. I’ll show you what kind of precision our people are achieving in mobile manufacturing which is where people uh some of the big names they say that it is a screwdriver uh technology. The precision is absolutely amazing and without getting that precision you can’t even be on the shop floor. We started with finished product manufacturing which that is the way China, Vietnam, Taiwan, they all started like that. Okay. Then you go down to the module manufacturing. We have already reached that module manufacturing. And now we are manufacturing. Yes, I’ve seen this in your table. Correct. This when you look at this, it looks like a good solid block. Is there a cut? You can see. Can you see a cut? You cannot see a cut, right? And oh this is like so many different pieces. Wow. Okay. This is what you saw as one solid block. Yeah. This kind of precision if you achieve then only you are allowed onto the shop floor where mobile phones are manufactured. Okay. No, I’m I’m guessing. And now we are going to manufacturing components. Last year we exported 35,000 cr rupees components to China. Now we are manufacturing components. Already 75 factories for electronics components are under construction at this point of time and about 250 component manufacturing factories will be set up in the coming 2 to three years. So we are going absolutely in the value chain the way many other countries have progressed and it takes that kind of effort to build the ecosystem and get those jobs. That’s why I say that 25 lakh jobs have been created in the electronics manufacturing. These are good quality jobs. So we were talking earlier about uh about Taiwan and about Korea. So the narrative is that China and uh Korea, Taiwan these these countries have taken such a leap forward that we are just going to become uh we are playing catchup. So what happens is that like why can’t India become like a Vietnam? Why are we not like an export house of the caliber of say these countries um in either in the chip industry or in the electronics field? You’re saying that we’re already doing it. How long before we can beat these countries? See these countries started manufacturing journey in early early 1980s. Early 1980s is when they started this entire manufacturing thrust. We started manufacturing thrust in uh just about 7 8 years 10 years ago. So 1991 reforms you 1991 reforms was so I wanted to come to that 1950 to 1990 four decades pre-wasted these were lost decades right entrepreneurs were made criminals factory act if something happens the I mean it it was a kind of rules and regulations which was a total waste of our country’s talent 1990 a change happened 1990 to 2004 those 14 years lot Lot of changes happened. So many sectors were opened up. The thrust which was required in that initial part was lost after 2004 to 2014. That is the time when we went back to the old 1950s kind of mindset that left uh oriented mindset where entrepreneurs were not even uh like they were not even allowed to use their energy and create new uh enterprises and create new jobs and create new employment. That was a time frame where where whatever momentum was built between 1990 and 2004 that momentum was kind of lost. 2014 we started once again on that journey. Okay. Manufacturing the major the single most important thing which is required in manufacturing is your ability to have a very fair labor system. Your ability to have quick approvals. your ability to provide credit to the people and so the banking sector is extremely important. The banking sector was in shambles in 2014 when we when Prime Minister Modi GI took the responsibility of the country. U then fourth the enterprising ability of a country and our country has always been a manufacturing country for 2,000 years. It is just in that when the British came they killed our industry. We our Congress governments from 1950 to 1990 they continued that entire thing that entire um in a sense stopping that production processes timing it having that license permit Rage so that entire slack when we compare ourselves with China Taiwan Korea we have to see that where they started and where we started but I’m sure given the kind of design capabilities that India has and given the entrepreneurial abilities that a country has, we certainly will be a big force and another big factor is the trust. Okay. Today when when I talk to my counterparts from Europe, my counterparts from US, uh from many parts of the country, they believe that they would like to procure their entire electronics from India because India is a trusted country. I gave you the example of railway uh proposition. trusted in the sense of security or trusted in the sense that we will deliver on time. Security security delivery on time of course is there quality is of course there because that was not expected out of India that we we never keep to the deadlines. Absolutely not. You are looking you are talking of a very old country. I don’t think you are talking of today. But the reason I’m saying it is because when things like bridges and you know uh uh say dams and those kind of things things have really changed 10 years 15 years 20 year projects. No no no you I mean you are talking of uh you have a huge experience and you’re talking of your past experience. So um before we wind up I just want to ask you uh again about the uh institutional investors. Do you think that they uh over there’s a talk that they overvalued the India story and that is why there is an exit. Do you ha do you have any comment to say about the India story being a success story and that you will achieve the vixed bharat goal? See the way we are growing and our economic uh growth model we will be growing at 6 to 8% consistent growth rate. Tell me one major economy among the top 10 economies in the world which is which can say that we are continuing to grow at 6 to 8% consistently not a single one. Okay. This is being recognized definitely by the global investor community and we certainly will see more capital inflows in the coming years. I can very clearly see and despite this inflationary pressures which are happening due to the West Asia crisis. West Asia crisis is uh a major uh in a sense uncertainty which has got caused because of that for the entire world. What I can say is that our government has handled it much better than any other government in the world. We have been able to shield our citizens, shield our farmers, shield everybody from that big shock because of the kind of uh steps that we have taken consciously in the past and during the recent times. So our management has been significantly better than any other country’s management. Thank you so much sir for giving us the time.