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Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday favoured giving a majority 51 per cent stake to foreign partners in joint ventures for building tunnels and detailed project reports to improve work quality.
Gadkari said providing a majority stake to a foreign partner in the joint venture is necessary to ensure that only serious and technically qualified players bid for tunnel projects.
In a lighter vein, Gadkari said that in some tunnel projects, European companies even choose Indian partners who own caterer services or beauty parlours for the construction of tunnels.
"I seriously feel that foreign partners must have 51 per cent stake, leaving 49 per cent for the Indian companies in JV for building DPR and construction of tunnels, to ensure that work is done properly," the minister said at an event in New Delhi.
Gadkari, who is known for his candid views, further said although the technical and financial parameters should be liberal, these should not be at the cost of quality.
"I probably should not be using the word 'culprit' but I will.
"DPR makers are the 'culprits' for their lack of oversight during the process of constructing tunnels, which often leads to landslides, that are increasing in India annually," he said.
The minister said there is a need to find a permanent solution to deal with issues of frequent landslides in Uttarakhand and other Himalayan areas.
Gadkari also said, "If we can reduce our logistics cost to 9 per cent then our exports will increase by 1.5 times."
According to quick estimates of economic think tank National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), the logistics cost in India ranged from 7.8 per cent to 8.9 per cent of GDP in 2021-22.