India Won’t Allow Driverless Cars As They Will Cost Jobs: Gadkari

“How can we allow driverless cars when we already have a huge number of unemployed people,” he asked.

India won’t allow self-driving cars as it will rob people of jobs.

“How can we allow driverless cars when we already have a huge number of unemployed people,” Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari said in response to a query.

His statement comes barely a week after a US Congress panel approved rules for such vehicles, paving the way for thousands of self-driving cars to hit the roads, Bloomberg reported. Technology behemoths like Google and Apple and ride-hailing company Uber Technologies have been working on driverless cars.

No Cut In Import Duty On Electric Cars

Gadkari also said the government won’t reduce the import duty on electric vehicles as it seeks to “encourage manufacturing” in India. He said the focus will be on having an indigenous, cost-effective and pollution-free public transport.

“If we see the increasing number of vehicles on road, we will need to add one lane to the national highways every year. The cost is huge,” the minister said responding to queries. “Therefore, we plan to strengthen public transport system. More buses running on electricity, ethanol, bio-diesel, biogas and LNG will be added,” he said.

He said that a manufacturer has come up with an electric bike which can run for 240 kilometres on a single charge.

(This story was first published on BloombergQuint.)